Jost Klein has won the Pop Award 2023. The award, worth €10,000 and a statue by Theo Mackay, was awarded at the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival in Groningen. The award is given annually to the band or artist who has had the greatest impact on Dutch pop music in the past year.

According to the jury, rapper, writer and audio-visual artist Al-Farizi has managed to capture the zeitgeist of the past year, both musically and in terms of content, with a clear signature of his own. The jury describes him as highly successful at home and abroad, and considers him a great supporter of young people “in a year marked by polarization, political crises, climate problems, wars, housing shortages and performance pressures.”

“His songs tell stories of serious personal suffering, his mental problems and the chaos of being a young man in 2024, but they are never without humor and offer his listeners hope as well as perspective and appreciation,” the jury said. “Musically, Ghost has his own signature, where a constant stream of stimuli, a short attention span and self-mockery are expressed in catchy songs.”

He also indicated this when receiving the award. He hopes he has made things open for discussion with his music:

In his acceptance speech, Klein thanked his family, his management, and other artists who influenced or supported him. His grammar school teacher, American musician Strange Al Yankovic, the success of the ringtone Crazy Frog (2006), the translation service Google Translate and the language learning app Duolingo were also mentioned in his acceptance speech.

“Everyone wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t win. “I guess we’ll never know.” Klein concluded his response to his win, echoing Kanye West’s words when he received the Grammy Award for Rap Album of the Year in 2005. Klein then played his song Uncle Robert: “Who are you? I am a god.”

The 26-year-old from Leeuwarden, who started out as a YouTuber, combines happy hardcore and pop punk in his own energetic style. His eighth album, Friesland, came out in 2022 and was a huge success. Since then he has performed regularly in sold-out halls and on main stages at festivals in the Netherlands and abroad.

Last year Lowlands shocked with a thunderous show at Alpha, the festival’s main stage:

Klein scored last year with his song Freisingung Summer hit in Germany with Berlin rapper Ski Aggu. He was also selected to represent the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, something he described as an honor and a dream come true. The selection committee for the Eurovision Song Contest praised his creativity and thought his entry had a lot of “successful potential”.

Last year the pop award went to Goldband. Previous winners include Di-Rect, Ronnie Flex, Kensington and Martin Garrix. The first pop award was awarded to Mathilde Santing in 1986.