At the start of what we hopefully will refer to as the long hot festivalsummer of 2024, ArtistCongratz would like to zoom in on a colourful artist named Joran Kunde.

Born and raised in Ghent, with roots in Kameroun, this rapper, producer and multi instrument player combines hip hop elements with contemporary jazz, funk and afro-beats🎶.

With a debut called “Dandelion”, we are almost immediately triggered to find out more about the story behind an extraordinary album, named after what we all tend to refer to as…weeds. 

Kunde: Dandelion.🌼 The little fluffy flower you can blow the seeds from, felt like a metaphor to me. Throughout the years I thought about it visually several times. 

I remember being very fond of these flowers when I was little. I loved to blow on them, to see them “float”. But I also remember a woman telling me: “Don’t blow on those, they spread weeds.” They turned out to be unwanted flowers. At least for most people. I didn’t see them that way. 

“In between Belgium and Kameroun”

Kunde: Growing up in Belgium while having roots somewhere else had its challenges, like anywhere else. You have to kind of adapt to some kinds of climate to flourish.

So I began to see the dandelion as this metaphor. Feeling like a little seed, blown through the winds of time, looking for a place to sprout, grow and flourish. At the same time being labeled “an unwanted flower”. 

Joran Kunde

The trigger for the album actually came from going back to Kameroun where part of my roots are. Far far away, like seeds of Dandelion, flown with the wind.

I don’t think people should be bound to geography, migration is a natural process. In my core as a human being I believe that all humans on this planet originally come from Africa somehow. Dandelion is a way to reflect all this…

AC witnessed her live at TAZ 2023. 
Kunde: I played the day before her…

AC: sorry we missed that…are you working together regularly?

Kunde: I am actually working on a second album. I’m still figuring out how the music will work but I already have one song with her. Fun fact: we recorded it the same date we recorded

“You should know” on which Helena features. After a session of three hours, we felt the inspiration and made something from scratch.  We both felt that this was not a one time thing…