Perquisite (Amsterdam, 1982) and Pete Philly (Aruba, 1980) decided to join forces to form the producer/MC-duo Pete Philly & Perquisite in 2003 when they met through a mutual friend.

The first result of this soulful coalition was the Mindstate EP, which had it’s release in January 2004 on Unexpected Records. The Mindstate EP was very positively regarded by the international press and recieved airplay on BBC1 were it was played by Benji B. Pete & Perq continued their collaboration and in march 2005 they released their 17-track debut album Mindstate, which was released all over Europe & Japan. It contained featurings by vocalists Talib Kweli, CeeMajor and Senna as well as featurings by internationally known jazz musicians Jesse van Ruller and Benjamin Herman. UK magazine Notion Magazine proclaimed their music to be “as much 21st century soul as Hip Hop genius” and continued with mentioning Mindstate as “one of the most profound Hip Hop albums of the year”. Talib Kweli added that “musically these guys are light-years ahead of the game.”

Pete & Perq started to play with their 5-piece live formation throughout Europe and received several awards including the Essent Award, the Zilveren Harp, the Kink FM Live XS Award for Best New Live Act and were nominated for the Edisons (Dutch Grammy’s), 3FM Awards, TMF Awards and the MTV European Music Awards.

After extensive touring all over Europe and shows in South Africa and the United States, where the album was released now as well through ANTI records, Pete & Perq finished their tour in September 2006 in a sold out Melkweg in Amsterdam. Pete & Perq went back to the studio to work together on their sophomore album. During this non-touring period ‘Remindstate’ was released, the totally remixed version of the Mindstate album. The record, which was released January 2007, included remixes from several musical friends of the duo, like Seiji (Bugz in the Attic), Nicolay (The Foreign Exchange), C-Mon & Kypski, Morgan Spacek, Laidback Luke and the Metropole Orchestra and was well received by both the audience as the press.

In September 2007 their second album, Mystery Repeats, was released in The Netherlands through Unexpected Records / ANTI Records. A Belgium release followed on January 21st 2008, the European release on February 18th and the Japanese release on March 5th 2008. The album entered first position in the Dutch album charts in the week of its release and first single ‘Time Flies’ received a lot of radio- and airplay. The album received a lot of critical acclaim.

Pete & Perq started the Mystery Repeats tour in a sold out Melkweg with their new and improved live formation – besides Pete on vocals, Perq on laptop and cello, DJ PCM on turntables, Remco Keijzer on saxophones and flute and Kasper Kalf on bass, it now also included Ruben Hein on keys and vocals - and started to play shows all over Europe. In march of 2008 they toured around Japan and in April of that same year they toured together with Leeroy from Saian Supa Crew in Germany. In the summer of 2008 they played at well known festivals across Europe including Sziget (HU), Nuke (AT), Exit (SR), Lowlands (NL), HipHop Open (DE), North Sea Jazz (NL), Gurten (CH) and Summerjam (DE). When they got back in Amsterdam they received the prestigious ‘Amsterdam Award of Art’, the most important art award of the city, presented by Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen. At this time their third single ‘Mystery Repeats’ entered the Dutch Top 40 and became their most successful single up to this date, with the accompanying video receiving around one million hits on youtube. Pete Philly & Perquisite concluded the Dutch part of the Mystery Repeats tour in a sold out Paradiso, Amsterdam, only to continue touring abroad. Shows in the Caribbean, the USA and South Africa followed, where they played for the second time on the Cape Town International Jazz Festival.

After the extensive touring period Pete and Perq both felt it was time to focus on other projects besides Pete Philly & Perquisite. In October 2009 they gave their final performance at a sold-out Melkweg.