Biography
Kees de Koning began his career in 1984 as a journalist for Trouw. There, he contributed to the youth page Zanzibar, writing short pieces. In 1987, he became an assistant to Hans Dulfer on the VPRO program Midnight Hour. In 1988, he started his own radio show on A-FM. A year later, he became a regular contributor to La Stampa, the VPRO’s journalistic program on 3FM. That same year, he also became a regular contributor to the music magazine OOR. He was also involved in the founding of Power Unlimited, for which he served as a staff editor. In addition, he published articles in de Volkskrant, HP/De Tijd, and Blvd. Since 2001, De Koning has no longer published articles.
In addition to his work as a journalist, De Koning made a name for himself in the 1990s as a (co-)organizer of events. From 1991 to 1995, he produced B-Boy Extravaganza at Paradiso in Amsterdam. These nights were highly influential in the development of hip-hop as a subculture in the Netherlands. All major Dutch hip-hop artists of that period performed there at least once. In 1993 and 1994, he also organized Time Fuckers at Paradiso, a multidisciplinary arts program in which artists ranging from Inez van Lamsweerde to Gotcha! presented their work.
Between 1993 and 1998, Kees de Koning gained prominence by creating a radio show together with 2Tall and DJ Knowhow under the name Dutch Masters, as part of VPRO’s Villa 65 on 3FM, in which only hip-hop was played. They were the first to achieve this on a national scale in the Netherlands. From 2003 to 2007, he matched this success by creating a similar program with Mr. Wix and Andrew Makkinga for the VPRO, as part of 3VOOR12. This program was called 3VOOR12XL.
In 1995, he founded the record label Top Notch, which has since grown into a well-known label in the Dutch hip-hop scene. Later, De Koning became Director of Artist Development at Universal, director of Top Notch, and manager of the Dutch rock singer Anouk, until he sold everything to Universal in 2019.
