Photo credit: Ruud Janssen – AVROTROS
On Monday 11th December, the Netherlands became the fifth country announce their artist for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, which will take place in Malmö, Sweden.
It was revealed by Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS that Joost Klein, billed simply as Joost, will represent them.
Joost has campaigned extensively for the chance to represent his country so read on to learn more about this and the man himself!
Who is Joost?
Joost was born in 1997 in the Frisian village of Britsum, which is located in the municipality of Leeuwarden. In 2008, he gained recognition for his YouTube channel EenhoornJoost, where he would primarily do sketches until 2016 when he turned his attention to rapping, following encouragement from fellow Dutch rapper Mick van der Spek. His debut single ‘Bitches’ was released in the same year and has over 2 million views on YouTube at the time of writing. You can watch the video for this below:
As Joost has developed as a musician, his songs have also taken on more serious topics at times, reflecting some of the personal tragedies in his life. In 2010, when Joost was still a boy, his father died of cancer. Following this, his mother had to be hospitalised for her mental health and died of a cardiac arrest shortly after returning home. These experiences are reflected in the 2022 single ‘Florida 2009’, the title of which refers to the last holiday Joost would take with his parents. You can listen to this track below:
In 2018, Joost released a small book of poems titled ‘Albino’, telling the Dutch newspaper Metro that he was inspired to do so by his father, who was also a writer:
He told me that I should also write a book, just like him. So when a publisher asked if I wanted to do that, I thought ‘Wow this couldn’t be better.’ I already had it finished in my head. It’s really cool to have something tangible in my hands. On YouTube and with my music everything is virtual and this is very different.
Joost Klein, metronieuws.nl
Music Career
Following his transition from YouTuber to rapper, Joost signed with the Dutch record label TopNotch in 2017, with whom he released his mixtape ‘Scandinavian Boy’. The titular single from this mixtape has received over 3 million views on YouTube at the time of writing and you can watch it below:
In 2018, Joost set up his own label, Albino Sports, and began releasing music through this. Subsequently, he has released six studio albums, the first of which was a 2018 collaboration with Dutch rapper Donnie and was titled ‘M van Marketing’. This was followed by ‘Albino’ and ‘1983’ (named after the birth year of his elder brother) in 2019, ‘Joost Klein 7’ in 2020 and ‘Albino Sports Vol. 1’, which showcases other artists signed with the label. However, his 2022 album ‘Fryslân’ has garnered him the most success, having reached number 2 on the Dutch Top 100 album charts and number 5 in the Flemish charts in Belgium.
2023 would see international success for Joost, when his single with German rapper Ski Aggu, ‘Friesenjung’, would reach number 1 in Germany. The song contains happy hardcore elements and has over 15 million views on YouTube and over 101 million streams on Spotify at the time of writing. You can watch the music video for this below:
Eurovision 2024
Joost has campaigned extensively for a chance to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, openly professing his love for the contest and his desire to represent the Netherlands on social media and even releasing ‘Joost for Eurovision’ t-shirts. Along the way, Joost has accumulated much support from his fans and the media, with Dutch radio station NPO 3FM starting a petition campaigning to have Joost in the contest. This amassed over 25,000 signatures and received widespread traction on social media.
Clearly, Joost’s hard work paid off as his song was chosen out of 600 submissions to represent the Netherlands. As part of this process, Joost had to perform his song live in front of the selection committee so that his performance and vocal capabilities could be taken into account. Speaking of their choice, Twan van de Nieuwenhuijzen, head of the committee, said:
There were a lot of entries from a wide range of genres, but in our view his had the most hit potential. In the song, you hear his familiar mix of party and nostalgia.
With his enormous creativity, we think Joost can put on a great show in a totally original way, and that the Netherlands and Europe are in for a positive surprise. We’re really looking forward to working with him.
Twan van de Nieuwenhuijzen, Head of the Dutch Selection Committee
For Joost’s reaction to the news, look no further than this video from AVROTROS of him finding out he would be going to Eurovision:
Joost’s Eurovision entry is titled ‘Europapa‘ and is a tribute to the singer’s late father. Speaking of the song, Joost said:
‘Europapa’ is about an orphan who travels throughout Europe (and beyond) to find himself and tell his story. At first, people don’t recognise him, but he goes on seizing any opportunity he gets to let himself be seen. ‘Europapa’ is a tribute to my father. When bringing me up, he passed on to me an expansive view of the world
Joost on ‘Europapa’, Eurovision.tv
The song was written alongside Joost’s longtime collaborator Donnie and was produced by Teun de Kruif with contributions by DJ Paul Elstak, one of the founders of happy hardcore. Therefore, while this contains much of what we’d expect from Joost’s music it is totally unlike anything we’ve come to expect from the Netherlands.
We wish the Netherlands and Joost the best of luck at Eurovision 2024!
You can follow Joost on social media!
Instagram: @joostklein
TikTok: @joostklein
YouTube: @joostklein1
You can keep up to date with Phoenix on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok for all the latest Eurovision 2024 news.
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