I’ve tried to convey the message several times in my blogs here, but this week it has become clearer then I could’ve ever blogged: Dutch teenagers who love hip hop or rap music don’t find their artists on mainstream media anymore. It’s all happening online.
I’ve ran into it several times, that I’ve never heard of a particular artist, but noticed that they are able to fill up big venues with their performances or get massive amounts of views on YouTube with their videos. With this, they match the popularity of some of the biggest names in mainstream music, but somehow they still appeared to be somewhat underground. If you weren’t paying attention to the scene, you wouldn’t know about all of this…until this week.
For many people, Dutch rapper Boef, came out of nowhere and took over all the charts the moment he released his debut album, “Slaaptekort”, on March 16th. He has not only taken over Dutch streaming charts, but even managed to become one the most streamed artists around the globe catching the attention from the International press.
To give you a sense of perspective, Boef crushed Ed Sheeran’s record for The Netherlands in the first day of his album release. Ed’s latest album ‘only’ got streamed about 3 million times in the first day. Boef got streamed 4.7 million times. The Netherlands is a small country, so this means 1 out of every 4 people has streamed him once (though the reality probably is that most teenagers streamed him several times and the adults were probably marketers and press people trying to figure out how they could’ve not seen him coming).
The word “boef” means thief or thug. Even though Boef started out making music and enjoyed a promising start, he actually got known to a wider audience when his popular YouTube vlogs were getting negative publicity. At the time, various vloggers were exploring the boundaries of what is accepted in order to attract more viewers. Some jumped on a train, and got themselves arrested, others insulted people on the street.
Boef insulted and aggravated the police. It got him the nickname of being one of the bully vloggers on YouTube. His appearance on a popular Late Night show only fueled the fire. According to his story, it was the beginning of him turning his life around. He used the momentum of having been on television to hook up with one of Holland’s most influential rapper and music mogul, Ali B, and got him to do part of the distribution and marketing surrounding his indie album and, a year after being labeled a bully, he’s now one of the most streamed rappers around.
