NOTH

ROME DE VRIES is The Narrator of NOTH — an artist who finds meaning in the moments most people overlook.

Born and raised in Rotterdam, ROME carries the heritage of his father’s Afrikaans-speaking Cape Town family and the outlook of the Dutch city that raised him.
 

His music blends alt-R&B, melodic rap and understated electronic production, but genre is only part of the picture. Rome’s real strength is observation. He notices the pauses, the half-finished conversations, the details left behind after someone leaves, and turns them into songs that feel immediate and lived-in.

There is warmth in his delivery, but also restraint. Rome rarely needs to overstate what a song is feeling. His voice moves naturally between melody and rhythm, allowing the story to lead and the emotion to arrive without force.

His work explores connection, distance, memory, attraction and the quiet consequences of ordinary choices. A room, a journey, a message left unanswered — in Rome’s hands, small details become the centre of the story.

As The Narrator of NOTH, he does not simply describe what happened. He captures how it felt to be there.

ROME DE VRIES — every moment has a story.

Musical Inspiration & Influences

ROME’s sound lives in the space between alt-R&B, melodic rap, contemporary soul, atmospheric pop and European late-night songwriting.

He is drawn to artists who can make a song feel conversational without losing its sense of scale — voices that sound lived-in, restrained and emotionally precise rather than overly theatrical.

SOUTH AFRICAN ROOTS

South Africa enters ROME’s music through memory, atmosphere and storytelling. In YoungstaCPT, he recognises an artist who makes place, ancestry and everyday experience inseparable from the verse. The introspective restraint of Shane Eagle and A-Reece speaks to his own preference for reflection over display, while Marcus Harvey’s meeting of rap, soul, jazz and R&B mirrors ROME’s refusal to choose between singing and speaking. He is equally drawn to the emotional openness of voices such as Shekhinah and Lloyiso.

Before discovering any of them, however, there was his father.

His father was not a professional musician; he was ROME’s first musical compass. Records by Jonathan Butler, Pacific Express, Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela travelled with him from Cape Town to Rotterdam, eventually sharing space with the soul, jazz and R&B albums he collected after arriving in Europe.

On quiet Sunday mornings, his father would play those records from beginning to end. He rarely explained music technically. Instead, he told ROME where a song came from, what Cape Town once felt like and why certain voices carried more than melody. Through those records, ROME began knowing his father’s country before he was old enough to understand its history for himself.

His father taught him that strength did not require volume, that silence could be part of the story and that a song could carry home across an ocean.

That inheritance remains inside ROME’s music. The Cape is present in its warmth, patience and humanity; Rotterdam gives it its clean edges, understated confidence and nocturnal pulse. Between the two, ROME found his own language.

His influences reach across the introspection of Frank Ocean, the nocturnal atmosphere of The Weeknd, the melodic fluidity of Drake, the understated soul of Daniel Caesar, and the cinematic emotional detail of James Blake and Sampha.

From the Netherlands, there is also an affinity with the emotional directness and melodic restraint found in artists such as Froukje, S10 and Douwe Bob — music that can feel intimate, contemporary and distinctly European without losing its accessibility.

French influence enters through a different door: atmosphere, phrasing and sophistication. ROME connects with the elegance of Stromae, the introspective edge of Lomepal, the emotional modernity of Ben Mazué, and the understated cinematic quality often found in contemporary French pop and chanson-inspired songwriting.

But ROME’s identity is never about imitation.

What interests him most is the ability to turn ordinary moments into something larger: a late drive, an unfinished conversation, money on the table, a city after midnight, somebody leaving without quite saying goodbye.

His music often sits between confidence and vulnerability — smooth on the surface, but with something unresolved underneath.

That is where ROME is most comfortable.

He doesn’t dramatise the story.

He tells it.

Fashion Style & Inspiration

ROME’s fashion follows the same philosophy as his music: quiet confidence, clean lines and controlled detail.

His wardrobe leans toward contemporary European tailoring, elevated streetwear and understated luxury — structured coats, relaxed trousers, fine-knit layers, crisp shirts, leather jackets and monochromatic pieces that feel expensive without needing to announce themselves.

His visual language draws strongly from Dutch minimalism, French nonchalance and Italian ease.

From the Netherlands, the influence is functional, architectural and restrained — the kind of clean, urban confidence associated with labels such as Daily Paper, Filling Pieces and the broader Amsterdam design scene.

French influence brings something softer and more instinctive: tailored coats worn casually, open collars, black denim, fine knits, understated jewellery and that slightly undone Parisian quality where elegance never appears overworked.

Fashion houses and designers such as AMI Paris, Saint Laurent, Lemaire, Dries Van Noten, Bottega Veneta, Zegna and Giorgio Armani all sit naturally within his world.

ROME rarely looks over-styled.

That is the point.

The clothes should feel like something he chose instinctively before walking out into the city — effortless, deliberate, slightly nocturnal.

His style is less about fashion as performance and more about presence.

Nothing excessive. Nothing accidental.

ROME is interested in people more than spectacle.

He notices the small things: how somebody speaks when they are tired, the silence after a difficult conversation, the way a city changes after midnight, the difference between confidence and performance.

He is drawn to architecture, late-night cities, design, travel, photography, good food, old records, contemporary art and long conversations that go somewhere unexpected.

He likes places with character rather than polish for its own sake — canal streets in Amsterdam, small bars in Paris, coastal roads, hotel lobbies, cafés at closing time, somewhere quiet enough to think.

ROME has a strong appreciation for craftsmanship too. Clothes, watches, interiors, music, food — anything made with care catches his attention. He values quality, but dislikes excess.

His outlook on life is simple:

pay attention, stay curious, and don’t pretend not to care.

He believes most people reveal themselves in the details.

He is ambitious, but not obsessed with appearances. Success means freedom, time, good people around him and being able to live on his own terms.

He is not afraid of contradiction either.

You can want more and still be grateful.
You can be confident and still uncertain.
You can leave something behind and still miss it.

ROME does not believe every question needs an immediate answer.

Sometimes you live with it.

Sometimes you keep moving.

And sometimes, honestly, that is enough.