Europapa: A Remix of Dutch Identity

Introduction: Europapa

Born in Friesland, Netherlands, Joost Klein’s career started as a digital creator on a YouTube channel. Later, he released his first single, "Jan Peter Balkenende," and became known as a Dutch rapper, absurdist artist, and youth culture icon (Petersen, 2023). He is known for his creativity, which incorporates humor, emotional vulnerability, and internet aesthetics. For the Netherlands’ 2024 Eurovision entry, Joost Klein performed his song, Europapa, which contains an energetic mix of Eurodance, playful humor, and a sense of pan-European identity (Kurris, 2024), a tradition of national representation long associated with the song contest. Klein’s performance conveyed much of Dutch identity, including Dutch youth culture and internet aesthetics, in hopes of bringing back the “‘90’s happy hardcore, which is a great reference to the Dutch Gabber Culture” (Kurris, 2024). Through the song’s musical style, staging, and narrative, Europapa represents not only a Eurovision Song Contest performance but also a cultural statement about the meaning of Dutch identity in this century.

Performance Analysis

Some of the aspects that stand out in Joost Klein’s performance are the lyrics, language, metaphors, storytelling, and his personal identity. These will be explored not just as artistic choices, but as tools used for nation branding, presenting the Netherlands in a different light than blog post one.

Lyrics and Language

One of the most striking features of the Netherlands’ Europapa is that it is multilingual, as “Language is therefore the second system of representation involved in the overall process of constructing meaning” (Hall, 1997). Joost Klein displays linguistic diversity by switching between Dutch, German, Italian, and English, which indicates a unique blend of national identity intertwined with a strong sense of European community. With this, it reflects their self-image of internationalism, which aims to represent their own country while allowing the other European audience to understand the lyrics as well (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, 2010). The song lyrics represent a world without borders, when he sings, “Ik wil weg uit Netherlands maar m’n paspoort is verdwenen” (Eurovision, 2024), meaning I want to leave the Netherlands, but my passport is gone. Next, traveling and mobility are represented with lines such as “Bezoek m’n friends in France” (Eurovision, 2024), which translates to Visit my friends in France. This depicts Europe as a space of free movement and spontaneous adventure. In an interview, Klein expresses, “he taught me to be open-minded, he taught me do not look at labels… people are people” (Eurovision Song Contest Podcast, 2024), revealing that this worldview is rooted in his father’s teachings. Moreover, Klein incorporated his playful personality into the song's repetition of the term Europapa to stand for a childish persona, while having Europe represent a father figure (Eurovision Song Contest Podcast, 2024). The multiple languages and openness emphasize that cosmopolitan identity plays a role and is based on movement and connections between different cultures: “there is no foreign terrain which we ought to approach in only one way… Rather, there are infinite paths to and from the same point of meaning shared between people” (Witt, 2006).

Metaphors and Storytelling

The final spoken section, “At the end of the day we are all human beings. My father told me once that the world has no borders. I miss you every day… You see, dad, I did listen to you” (Eurovision, 2024). The metaphor was understood that identity is not confined by nationality and that Europe is a shared home with an emotional connection, not just part of the geography, which goes back to Appiah's definition of cosmopolitanism, “our obligations to people extend beyond kith and kin…we have to vest value in ‘humanity’ not just in the abstract, but in the particular lives of individual people; people we may never know” (Witt, 2006).

The whole song tells a story about him continuously traveling from country to country; however, this line, “Ben aan het vluchten van mezelf Roep de hele dag om ‘help!’” (Eurovision, 2024) translates to Am running from myself, calling for help all day long. Klein believed that the world has no borders, but it is also another metaphor for his emotional struggle, searching for belonging, and internal conflict beneath the cheerful front (Eurovision Song Contest Podcast, 2024).

Musical, Visuals, and Staging

Musically, Europapa relies on the Dutch Gabber traditions and Eurodance from the 1990s (Kurris, 2024), with its fast BPM, kick drums, and repetitive synth patterns. One difference is that it does not follow the nostalgia of the Dutch Gabber Culture, which situates the performance within Dutch music traditions and appeals to a broader European audience that is familiar with Eurodance.

Visually, the running and constant movement choreography that Klein and the backup dancers do emphasizes the lyrics of travel, mobility, and borderlessness, especially when the LED screens display Earth, stars, and European themes in motion. Additionally, camera shots alternate between close-ups of Klein and the world shown in the LED screens to illustrate that he is also a collective part of the European youth culture. The colors used were bright blues, whites, with accents of neon brings in the flag of Europe, parts of the Netherlands’ flag, and the 1990s culture. Klein’s blue outfit has exaggerated pointy shoulders that blend camp aesthetics with a futuristic look. Through this, the Eurovision Song Contest exhibits the tension between national representation and post-national identity, as it often does (Wennberg, 2025).

Joost Klein’s Identity

Klein's personality and identity significantly influence the meaning of his performance, as mentioned earlier. He grew up with the internet, is multilingual, possesses a sense of humor, and holds an anti-elitist stance (Petersen, 2023). As a result, he has become an icon for modern Dutch youth. This contrasts sharply with the older generation's view of Dutchness, which emphasizes directness and strict norms, as discussed in the previous blog post. Klein’s Frisian identity, from a northwestern region in the Netherlands, indicates internal hybridity and the complexities of Dutch identity itself (Lechner, 2008). His style also challenges essentialists' understanding of nationality and instead presents the Dutch as inclusive and flexible about diversity.

(Mis)Alignment with the Dutch National Identity

The performance highlights both national and transnational identities, aligning with Dutch cosmopolitanism and European integration (Lechner, 2008). In Europapa, the language, lyrics, metaphors, staging, and musical genre connect its performance to the Dutch national identity, featuring openness, mobility, and cultural diversity (WRR, 2010). Along with the 1974 World Cup soccer team, states that, “everything our country wanted to be in those days—bold, relaxed, free-thinking” (Lechner, 2008), Klein’s performance represented the same elements, pushing back what the country could not be before, as their identity was so focused on their norms and directness. His words for his father introduce a level of sentimentality that differs from Dutch norms of emotional modesty. On top of that, his persona on stage challenges the Dutch expectation of behaving normally, and his performance displayed a variety of cultures and aesthetics that are not associated with the official national representation. Europapa acts as a rebranding of Dutch identity, shifting from an older national narrative of national identity towards a more playful, cosmopolitan, and emotionally expressive one. This creates tension with the traditional Dutch norms. Furthermore, the internal hybridity that is seen with Klein’s background as a Frisian identifies with the Dutch identity of being fluid and diverse. While the performance is explicitly not queer, it showcases camp aesthetics, flexible masculinity, and humor, which basically undermines essentialism, rejecting fixed stereotypes.

Evolved Understanding of the Dutch National Identity

Before analyzing Europapa, I had understood that the Dutch national identity was multicultural, tolerant, internationalist, and liberal. However, Europapa has expanded my thinking on their national identity and many parts of the Dutch identity, which now also embodies youth culture, humor, regional diversity, and European integration (Kurris, 2024; Lechner, 2008). The performance shows that national identity does not have to be tied to territory or tradition (Lechner, 2008) but can be altered into fun, unique ways to be more connected with Europe as a whole.

Conclusion

Joost Klein’s Europapa is more than a performance as it features Dutch cosmopolitan identity and humor, but also creates a new model of Dutch identity that includes modern and youthful aspects, revealing that national identity can be dynamic.

 

Word Count: 1,368

References

Eurovision. (2024). Joost Klein – Netherlands 2024. Eurovision Song Contest. https://www.eurovision.com/eurovision-song-contest/malmo-2024/all-participants/joost-klein/

Eurovision Song Contest Podcast. (2024). Joost Klein explains “Europapa” meaning (Netherlands Eurovision 2024) [Audio podcast episode]. Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joost-klein-explains-europapa-meaning-netherlands-eurovision/id1507149650?i=1000649185911

Hall, S. (1997). The work of representation. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 13–74). Sage / The Open University. https://www.sholetteseminars.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/hall-representation.pdf

Klein, J. (2024) “Europapa” (The Netherlands). Eurovision Song Contest 2024 Malmö [DVD]. Universal Music Group.

Kurris, D. (2024, March 1). Netherlands 2024: We were at Joost Klein’s song presentation! ESCplus. https://www.esc-plus.com/netherlands-2024-we-were-at-joost-kleins-song-presentation/

Lechner, F.J. (2008). The Netherlands: Globalization and National Identity (1st ed.). Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203939864

Petersen, C. (2023, December 11). Netherlands: Joost Klein to Eurovision 2024. Eurovisionworld. https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/netherlands-joost-klein-to-eurovision-2024

Wennberg, R. (2025, June 4). The politicization of Eurovision – Is Europe really “United by Music”? Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/blogs/europe-corner/politicization-eurovision-europe-really-united-music

Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid. (2010). Attached to the world: On the anchoring and strategy of Dutch foreign policy. WRR. https://english.wrr.nl/documents/2010/11/30/attached-to-the-world

Witt, M. T. (2006). [Review of Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, by K. A. Appiah]. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 28(4), 646–652. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610829