Kraantje Pappie

Kraantje Pappie (Alex van der Zouwen, born in 1986) is a Dutch rapper / mc from Groningen, Holland. Alex came in contact with the hip-hop culture at a young age through the CD's that he grabbed from his father's collection. Bodycount and RUNDMC made a big impression on him and motivated him to listen to more of this kind of music.

Slowly he discoverd all the aspects of this hiphop culture, but nothing excited him as much as rapping; playing with words and tell your own story in the most (im)possible ways.

Soon came the first songs, collaborations and performances. This resulted in winning the talent contest "Before the Fame Awards”, a place in the national finals of the “Sena Performer Awards”, a session and a spot in "The Hall Off Fame "for " BNN's Rotjoch his “101barz studio sessions" (with more than 2 million views and still counting) and a sold out release party in Simplon with the "Kraantje Pappie Club Voer Mixtape "(a free online release).

Kraantje Pappie also won a place in the finals of the “Grote Prijs van Nederland 2009” (Holland's biggest and most important contest for acts) where his DJ (Friss) won the price for “Best Musician”. In this year he also released his first official EP on Noah's Ark, one of the two biggest hiphop labels in Holland. The release show for this EP sold out in one week!

At the moment Kraantje Pappie is working hard in the studio, together with NOISIA, to produce a full album wich is coming out in februari 2011.
Standing strong with Noah's Ark (record label owned by ducth rapper Jiggy Djé), a growing network and with a lot of passion and talent in his pocket, Kraantje Pappie is working himself to the top of the Dutch music-industry.