Getting his start making music in 2016, the Dutch hip hop/hardstyle artist got his first break when he was selected to represent The Netherlands in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden. The song he chose to compete with was titled, “Europapa”, written by him along with Donnie, Tim Haars, Tantu Beats, Paul Elstak, and Thijmen Melissant. In an interview Joost described the song saying, “‘Europapa’ is about an orphan who travels all over Europe (and beyond) to find himself and tell his story. At first, people don’t recognize him, but he grabs every opportunity he gets to show himself. ‘Europapa’ is a tribute to my father. When he raised me, he gave me an expansive view of the world.” Probably one of the most pro-Europe songs to ever enter in the contest, “Europapa” quickly entered the top five in odds to win. The live performance included a short outro dedicated to Joost’s parents, who introduced him to Eurovision. Joost’s parents died when he was twelve, so this was obviously a very special moment for him to be a part of Eurovision.
After his performance in the second semi-final, however, there was a problem. According to the Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, “After last Thursday’s crackdown, an incident occurred. Joost was filmed against clearly made agreements when he just got off the stage and had to rush to the greenroom. At that time, Joost has repeatedly indicated that he does not want to be filmed. There was no heed to that. This has led to a threatening movement from Joost to the camera. Joost did not touch the camerawoman. This incident has been reported, followed by an investigation by the EBU and police.” (Source) Following this, Joost became the first contestant to ever be disqualified from the contest in its almost 70-year history. Many fans including myself found the disqualification to be unjust, and charges against the singer were dropped later that year.
However, this incident launched Joost’s career in a way that winning the contest probably could never have. Klein continued to release music and even collaborated with the 2023 Eurovision runner-up Käärijä. Europapa reached #1 on multiple European country’s billboards and made it to #2 on the US World Digital Song Sales and #11 on the US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. In September of 2025, it was announced Joost would be performing at Coachella, a first for any Dutch artist. On December 17th he announced his first world tour, with dates in North and South America in March, April and May, Europe in June, and Australia & NZ in November and December.
Performing at The Anthem in Washington D.C. on May 1st, a huge crowd from the DMV area made their ways to the show. The Anthem opened in 2017 and sits on the Potomac River, surrounded by restaurants making for a beautiful area with great nightlife. Walking into The Anthem, a spacious, two-level hall allows for a large crowd of up to 6,000 people to attend concerts, and the main area filled up well for the concert. Two DJs each opened for the concert playing pop hits, ipadkid2001 and DJ Chool.
After an interlude following DJ Chool, Joost came out on stage, beginning with “ome Robert” from his 2019 album Albino. Joost’s Hardstyle and Gabber genre, while not very popular outside of Europe, was well received by the fans in The Anthem. With almost no break Joost followed up with one of his more recent hits, “Luchtballoon.” He then took time to thank Washington, and was happy to see us here despite knowing nothing about the city. The concert continued including songs like “Kunst und Musik,” a song which samples the chorus from “Was ist dein Lieblingsfach;” which was a song on a BBC education show for teaching German. After every couple songs, Joost would thank the crowd again, which is understandable considering becoming a famous artist was one of his dreams. Almost any moment of silence was followed with chants of his name from the audience. Going into the concert, many were unsure if Joost would perform his most popular song outside of “Europapa,” that being “Friesenjung.” The song was a collaboration with German rapper Ski Aggu, and samples Otto Waalke’s song of the same name. Ski Aggu and Joost had some sort of falling out a couple years prior, and when the opening of the song played he even yelled that this was his song; which the crowd erupted in cheers. He immediately followed with his collaboration with Käärijä, “TRAFIK!” which was probably my favorite to hear live, even though the Finnish rapper wasn’t there. Most of the second half consisted of songs from his newest album Kleinkunst which had been released January 1st of this year.
We were especially lucky that for his performance of his most recent single, “Kutmuziek,” he asked everyone to put away their phones as he wanted to film a music video at tonight’s show. Sure enough, a cameraman appeared on stage and began to film as the song started.
At one point a fan was able to hand him an onion, a reference to a story he told where his parents would put an onion on his nightstand next to his bed whenever he faked being sick. Joost would just eat the raw onion, and so when he was handed one he took a bite out of it much to the amusement of the crowd. This isn’t unheard of for his shows and has started to become a trend at this point.
Joost was energetic the whole night, and seeing him hakken made it all the more exciting. Throughout his set he would tease Europapa, and when it finally came time for him to perform it, everyone was overjoyed. He asked us to do our best hakken in the lead up to the drop, and many tried their best as the crowd cheered each other on. He even performed the outro of Europapa, and the audience making sure to quiet down for it was definitely a highlight. He then ended the concert with “Last Man Standing” and a remix of ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All.”
Klein can only be described as pure stage presence, and any electronic music or hardstyle fan should try and attend one of his shows, you will not be disappointed. His visuals behind him are incredibly goofy; filled with memes or low poly animations that harken back to the nineties.
Joost released his most recent album on January 1st, 2026 titled, Kleinkunst, which can be found on all streaming services. His website and tour information is available here, and his Instagram account here.
Set List
Ome Robert
Luchtballoon
1
Kunst und Musik
Antwoord
Why Not???
Meeuw
Shanghai Night
We’ll Meet Again
Friesenjung
TRAFIK!
Wtffff 😛
Capitalism 😀
Farmcore
Latin Gabber
Kutmuziek
Zonder Jou
Buurman uit Berlijn
Filthy Dog
Europapa
Europapa – Outro
Last Man Standing
The Winner Takes It All (Remix)
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