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Kees de Koning

*1971
Hip-Hop/Rap

Kees de Koning (fka as Mental Kees), is a Dutch radio-dj, manager and founder of the record label TopNotch. Born 14 May 1971, Kees began his career in 1984 as a journalist for Trouw. Working for the youth magazine Zanzibar he began with drawing illustrations and writing articles. In 1987 he became the assistant to Hans Dulfer for the VPRO show "Midnight Hour". In 1988 he began his own hip-hop radio show on Amsterdam FM. A year later he became a permanent contributor to La Stampa, the journalistic show of VPRO, broadcast on 3FM. He also became a main contributor for magazine OOR that same year, having also been a founding member of the Power Unlimited radio program. In addition to all this, he also wrote articles for Volkskrant, HP/De Tijd En Blvd. He has however not published any written articles since 2001. Aside from his activity as a journalist, De Koning was also known fororganizing parties. He produced the famed "B-Boy Extravaganza" party series at Paradiso in Amsterdam, which proved to be detrimental to creating a foundation for Dutch hip-hop culture. In 1993 and '94 De Koning also helped organize the Time Fuckers series at Paradiso. From 1993 to 1998, he was a member "Dutch Masters" together with Too Tall and DJ Knowhow which as broadcast as part of the Villa 65 on VPRO's 3FM. The radio show had many guests in attendance, from both the United States as well as the Netherlands. Becoming the first nationally syndicated hip-hop show. From 2003 to 2007 he was apart of a similar production known as "3VOORXL" together with Mr. Wix an Anrew Makkinga for the VPRO subsidiary 3VOOR12. In 1995, Kees de Koning founded the Dutch label TopNotch which became the most populat hip-hop label in the Netherlands. Aside from managing his record label, De Koning is also the Director of Artist Development at Universal Music (Benelux) and the manager of singer [a-Anouk].

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