Froukje

Nieuwkoop, Codarts and a song that would not stay small

Froukje Veenstra was born on 4 September 2001 in Nieuwkoop, South Holland, into a family of teachers where music was already part of the household. She played in bands before she left school — Ginger Squad alongside her father and sister, and Chicks & Wings — and attended the Scala College in Alphen aan den Rijn. At 16 she moved to Rotterdam to study at Codarts, the city's conservatory. The pandemic cut that short from 2020 onwards and removed the one thing a young performer needs most, which is somewhere to play.

What replaced it was a recording. "Groter dan ik", released in 2020, was a blunt song about the climate crisis and the adults who had left it to her generation; it gathered 1.7 million streams inside a year. The follow-up, "Ik wil dansen", entered the Dutch Single Top 100 and then took on a second life she had not designed: through 2021 it was adopted as an unofficial anthem at the protests demanding that Dutch nightlife be allowed to reopen. Three of her songs were voted into the Top 2000 that year, which for a Dutch artist one year into a career is unusual.

She writes at a laptop, a guitar or a keyboard, and points to Maarten van Roozendaal and Theo Nijland as the lyric writers who shaped her, with Eefje de Visser, Typhoon and Stromae as the wider reference points. She is openly bisexual, and wrote the 2021 single "Niets tussen" about being in love with a woman.

Two EPs, then a number one

The EP 'Licht en donker' arrived on 8 January 2021 and reached number two on the Dutch Album Top 100. 'Uitzinnig' followed on 18 March 2022 and reached number five. That summer took her onto the festival circuit properly — Pinkpop, Pukkelpop, Lowlands, Best Kept Secret and Concert at SEA — and she has since played main stages at Rock Werchter and Down The Rabbit Hole as well.

The debut album 'Noodzakelijk verdriet' came on 12 January 2024, released through her own Frok 'n Roll imprint after the earlier EPs on TopNotch, and entered at number one in both the Netherlands and Flanders. It carried "Als ik god was", "Naar het licht", "Houden van mij" and "Kwijt", and by her own camp's count it was the most-streamed album in the Netherlands that year. Her total since 2020 now stands at more than 240 million streams.

The prizes accumulated in step. Edisons for 'Licht en donker' in 2022 and 'Uitzinnig' in 2023, both in the alternative category; 3FM Awards for best song and best album in 2024; best artist in 2025. On 10 March 2025, at the 65th Edisons at the AFAS Theater in Leusden, 'Noodzakelijk verdriet' took best album, an award she accepted by video link because she could not attend. The jury's line was that she is a young spirit with an old soul.

The S10 years

The other half of the story is her partnership with S10. It began with the duet "Zonder gezicht" in 2022, which was voted song of the year by 3voor12, and continued through "Nooit meer spijt" the same year. "Ik haat hem voor jou" in 2024 reached number 11 in the Dutch Top 40 and number five in Flanders; "Hart in brand" in 2025 reached 15 and seven. At Lowlands on 16 August 2024, S10 appeared unannounced during Froukje's set for a then-unreleased duet, after which the pair attempted a synchronised stage dive.

The collaboration scaled up fast. The joint album 'Froukje Loves S10, S10 Loves Froukje' was released on 14 November 2025 and reached number ten in the Netherlands; the shared EP passed 50 million streams. The two played two sold-out nights at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on 1 and 2 November 2025 and two at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. In 2026 the work together took another Edison in the alternative category.

It also meant that for a long stretch Froukje released nothing under her own name alone — by the time she broke the silence it had been 770 days.

A new record, written and mostly produced alone

The reset came on 20 February 2026 with "Iedereen gaat vreemd", a song about infidelity built on a hard pop hook, produced with 22ghosts — Max Crebolder, Tjeerd Bomhof of Voicst and Mathias Janmaat of Bombay — with a deliberately provocative video by the film-maker Sam De Jong. She was careful to say the song was about monogamy as a social observation rather than her own relationship, after people started asking whether she was all right. It became her first solo entry in the Dutch Top 40.

On the change of tone she was direct: the time away had altered how she wrote, and after giving herself space the ideas came back. She described the result as a lighter heart and a new era, not a change of character. "Jaar na jaar" followed on 9 May 2026, a song about continuing to choose someone when it is difficult, and on 10 May she confirmed a second album for the same year. "Ik wou dat ik jou was" and "Geen rem" came after it.

'Kijk je naar mij?' is released on 2 October 2026. She wrote all of it and produced most of it herself, and the framing she has given it is a reversal of the debut: where 'Noodzakelijk verdriet' looked inward, this one looks outward — at the world, at love in its various forms, and at her own odd relationship with a life spent being an artist. The recent singles sit noticeably more solid and more electronic than anything on the first album. Alongside the music, she took her first acting role in 2026, as Mies in the film 'Joe Speedboot'.

Where she stands in September 2026

Froukje spent June 2026 doing the opposite of what an artist with two sold-out Ziggo Dome nights behind her would be expected to do. She went out alone, to open-air theatres, starting at the Goffert in Nijmegen on 6 June and finishing in Maastricht on 28 June, with a single Belgian date at the Rivierenhof in Deurne on 26 June. Tickets were sold only through her own website, at roughly €35 to €41.50, and the rooms were kept deliberately small. Her stated reason was that she missed the closeness she used to build with an audience before the venues grew.

The autumn is the opposite gear. Two album release shows at the Melkweg in Amsterdam on 11 and 12 October went on sale on 10 September, and the band tour runs through November and December across the larger Dutch and Belgian pop venues: Patronaat in Haarlem on 14 November, Groningen on 20 and 21 November, Maastricht on 26 November, the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 27 November, De Roma in Antwerp on 28 November, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht on 3 December and Tilburg on 5 and 6 December. As of mid-September, the Zwolle, Nijmegen, Haarlem, The Hague, Utrecht and Amsterdam dates were gone, with tickets remaining in Groningen, Maastricht and Tilburg.