Biography
'Zwarte Riek' (Hendrika Elisabeth Jansen, born Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 8 Oct 1924 - died 21 Jan 2016) was a singer of popular folk/croon repertoire in the Dutch language. Nicknamed 'The Princess of the Jordaan' (the Jordaan being a popular neighborhood in central Amsterdam), she enjoyed her greatest succes in the 1950s. Her most famous tune is Mijn wiegie was een stijfselkissie ('My cradle was a starch box').
Under her real name, Rika Jansen, she recorded the Dutch classic 'Amsterdam huilt (waar het eens heeft gelachen)' ('Amsterdam cries (where it once laughed)').
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Zwarte Riek died in January 2016, aged 91.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.