Robine

Groningen, a YouTube cover and a move to Hamburg

Robine Koerts was born in the Dutch city of Groningen and started performing at eight, after a cover she recorded was picked up locally. Her father encouraged the singing and pushed her towards English-language material; as a child she sang on stages in the Netherlands, in China and in the Dominican Republic, working through songs by Joss Stone, Jamie Lidell, Ella Eyre and Rihanna rather than anything of her own.

At 14 she appeared on the Dutch edition of The Voice Kids. She has since said the format struck her as superficial, and the experience pushed her towards writing instead of competing. Her mother is from Suriname, and the soul records played at home — Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill — stayed with her; among current singers she points to Danielle Ponder.

Roughly three years before an interview published on 7 October 2026, she relocated to Hamburg, having started writing with songwriters based there and wanting a bigger platform than the Dutch circuit offered. She has been based in the city since, and now sits somewhere between the two scenes: a Dutch artist whose press, band and booking are German.

Four years of singles before an album

The first release under her own name was From You in 2022, a song written from the position of someone who has come through something rather than someone still inside it. It became the track she was known by for a while, and it set the template for what followed: first-person writing about damage and recovery, carried by a voice with more power than the arrangements usually ask for.

Rather than rushing to an album, she spent the next three years on shorter formats. My Own Girl arrived in 2024; Don't Feel Anything and Hungry for the Kill followed in 2025, alongside two EPs, Gone For Good and Helium. She has also guested on other people's records, including the single Vem där? by Blezz & Just.

Live work built in parallel. She played Eurosonic Noorderslag and Norden Festival, and through 2026 took support slots that put her in front of other acts' audiences: five German dates with Garth between 12 and 16 March 2026, three more with Wilhelmine between 18 and 22 May 2026, and an opening set for Gentleman at Dingfest in Dingolfing on 17 July 2026.

Motivation: eleven songs, recorded with jazz players

Motivation came out on 9 October 2026, self-released, with eleven tracks. The subject is narrow and deliberate: how self-confidence gets assembled rather than discovered, and what it takes to trust an instinct after a long run of second-guessing. The title track contains the line she has used to summarise the record — that she will be her own motivation.

One early decision shaped the sound. She hired jazz musicians rather than pop session players, wanting arrangements that moved like a band in a room instead of a grid. Helium opens the album on a funk-leaning, dance-oriented arrangement; Overthinker, released ahead of the album, is a funk track about thoughts outrunning feelings; Best Day Of My Life brings in brass; Change Your Mind slows into a ballad; Burned reaches back to 1960s girl-group soul-pop.

German reviewers have been consistent about two things: the comparison point is Olivia Dean, and the sixties borrowings — the Supremes and the Ronettes are both named — stop short of pastiche. One album review called the result both timeless and modern and argued that Overthinker deserved more commercial traction than it got; the same outlet had already picked Best Day Of My Life as its song of the day. A track review published on 7 September 2026 described Burned as a pop and R&B song with real momentum, and read it as the last pillar put in place before the album.

Autumn 2026, dated

The run-up to the album was unusually visible for an unsigned artist. Burned was released on 4 September 2026. The day before, on 3 September, she performed it with her band in the moma Café slot on ZDF's Morgenmagazin — a national breakfast-television audience for a self-released single.

Two weeks later she played Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg. Her full-band mini-concert at the N-Joy Reeperbus on Friday 18 September 2026 — keys, drums, bass and backing vocals — was written up the following day as soul-pop of the better sort, with the reviewer's blunt recommendation that the artist deserved attention. She also turned up in the festival's free Festival Village programme, which is where several attendees reported finding her. A headline show at Birdland in Hamburg had already sold out.

As of the album's release she remains independent. In the October 2026 interview she said things were working as they are, that she would consider a major label if the terms suited both sides, and that she would rather build a committed audience than rely on industry contacts — naming Raye, who runs her own career, as the model.

The first headline tour

The Motivation tour runs thirteen dates between 20 October and 8 November 2026, across Germany and the Netherlands, in clubs rather than halls. It opens at Kupfersaal in Leipzig on 20 October, then Privatclub in Berlin on the 21st, GrooveStation in Dresden on the 22nd, Q Bar in Marburg on the 23rd and Nörgelbuff in Göttingen on the 24th.

The Dutch leg follows immediately: Cinetol in Amsterdam on 25 October and Luxor Live in Arnhem on the 26th. Then Ponyhof Club in Frankfurt on 29 October, Kulturzentrum Pelmke in Hagen on the 30th, and a second block in November — Kent Club in Hamburg on the 5th, A-Theater in her home city of Groningen on the 6th, Hot Jazz Club in Münster on the 7th and Die Wohngemeinschaft in Cologne on the 8th.

Demand is uneven in the way it usually is for a first headline run: the Dresden date sold out ahead of time at upwards of €24.98, while Frankfurt was still on sale at €26.30. No support acts have been announced for the headline shows.

What is still unsettled

Robine has the parts of a career that are hard to fake — a debut album that reviewers rate, national television, a festival slot and a sold-out hometown-adjacent show — and none of the parts that usually come with them. There is no label, and the release sits under her own name.

Her own stated preference is for rooms rather than fields. She has said she finds indoor venues better for the kind of connection she is after, because festival sets rarely allow it. The autumn 2026 tour is the first real test of whether the audience that found her on the breakfast-television sofa and at a free festival stage will fill thirteen clubs across two countries.