't Hof van Commerce is a Belgian hip hop crew from Izegem in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Their name roughly translates to ‘the court of commerce’ or 'commercial court' in their local dialect. Almost all their raps/lyrics are in West Flemish, the Dutch dialect of the province of West Flanders, with the exception of some lines sung in Limburgish by DJ 4T4 or a mix between those two dialects.

Band members are Flip Kowlier (a.k.a. Levrancier, real name Filip Cauwelier) and Buyse (a.k.a. Dommestik a.k.a. BZA, real name Serge Buyse). Kristof Michiels (DJ 4T4) was also a member, who did most beat production (and DJ on stage) and even took the mic himself on some tracks as well. However, in March 2024, he announced on Instagram that he would leave the group after 26 years, to focus on his own activities as a film maker, party-DJ and artist.

The rap verses are mainly in West Flemish and are mostly humoristic but often contain political references too (although the latter happened more on their earlier albums). The albums often feature guest rappers, among them being MC Balo (Baloji - former Starflam member), Brahim, Riemeloare (De Nihilisten), TLP, Gabriel Rios, MC’s Spok and Statiek (Indigenous), Peter Lesage (ERTEBREKERS, Moiano) and Nina Babet (also known from Moiano).

Each member has developed a solo career in addition to their career with 't Hof van Commerce. Flip Kowlier released his first solo album Ocharme ik in 2001, 4T4 is the driving force behind Ultrasonic 7 and Serge Buyse is active as a cartoonist and also released a self-titled solo album Buyse in 2011. His English-language debut comic strip Adventures in Cult City was introduced to the public in 2010.

Despite (mockingly) boasting often about being the greatest rappers in their tracks and how no one can compete with them on their level, history has proved them right. As pioneers in the genre (rapping in their mother (dialectic) tongue, rather than English or ‘standardized’ Dutch), they paved the way for future artists. A lot of others, trying the same, have come and gone since they made their debut. After almost three decades, ’t Hof van Commerce has proven itself worthy and shows no intentions of retiring just yet. The hiphop formation continues to attract both fans who’ve been with them from the start, as well as new fans from younger generations and also keeps inspiring or influencing upcoming artists.


History
It all started with The Prophets of Finance, the crossover band of Flip Kowlier and Serge Buyse, which ceased to exist somewhere around 1993–1994. During this time, Kristof Michiels (4T4), who had been a class mate of Serge in the vocational university of Sint-Lucas (now LUCA School of Arts) in Ghent, had occasionally done some live scratching performances on stage with The Profets of Finance, fortifying his friendship with Flip and Serge.

Listening to hiphop and rap music, young Buyse and Kowlier started to rap along on tracks by The Pharcyde and Wu-Tang Clan, in their own local West Flemish dialect. What started out as a joke at first (hence Buyse first stylized his name as BZA, stylized/pronounced after artists ‘RZA’ and ‘GZA’ from Wu-Tang Clan), soon felt like something that somehow worked. One thing led to another, and with very little experience and literally no budget, Kowlier and Buyse started writing rhymes and recorded their first album on a borrowed 16-track digital recorder, in only a week’s time in a room above a copy center in the student neighbourhood Overpoort in Ghent.

Kristof Michiels, who had traveled by bike all the way to Portugal and had originally planned to stay and live there, briefly came back to Belgium for a moment, and was played the supposedly finished but raw sounding recording of ‘En in Izzegem’ Kowlier and Buyse had just put together. Michiels thought it sounded horrible and terribly mixed, and proposed to mix it himself, saying they should throw it away if they didn’t like it. They turned out to actually prefer his version, and eventually Michiels, unemployed at the time, was the only one who actually earned a bit of money from the album (4000 Belgian Franks, or 100 euros). In 1997, 't Hof van Commerce was founded, and in 1998, they released their first album En in Izzegem..., the title (translated ‘And in Izegem...’) referring to their (Buyse and Kowlier’s) small home town Izegem, where the band was founded.

Following the release of their debut, the ball started rolling. The album was received very well by the Belgian media and mainstream audience. The track Dommestik en Levrancier - radio version was on the ‘heavy rotation’ list at Flemish radio station Studio Brussel and got through to De Afrekening, StuBru’s top 40 charts, very quickly. The track also ended up on De Afrekening’s compilation CD De Afrekening, Volume 15 in 1998. Jan Hautekiet and Dirk Stoops, radio hosts at Studio Brussel, played a track from the album each hour, fueling the hype. Radio listeners called in all the time with track requests. It had been since Willem Vermandere they’ve heard something in West Flemish on the radio. Thanks to their radio success, their shows also started to attract bigger audiences and they moved from small bars to bigger stages.

The second single Zonder Niet was equally successful. About 8000 copies of ‘En in Izzegem...’ were sold, which was quite an accomplishment for a Belgian hiphop debut (and the Belgian hiphop scene in genreal) sung/rapped entirely in West Flemish, only understood by about one million people. The album’s success was a welcome injection for the small alternative Ghent based label Kinky Star Records (run by Danny Mommens, former bass player of dEUS who has his own project Vive la fête) that signed them.

In the meantime, two of the members of the group had ambitious side projects as well. Flip Kowlier played bass in Jan Leyers’ (known from Soulsister) band, My Velma. DJ 4T4 also had numerous side projects, such as Kamikaze, Yutakasa, Cosmic Relief (they released a movie soundtrack containing one song of 70 minutes), his one-man-band project Magik Ballet Ensemble and the crazy rapping super hero Atomic.

Only a short year later, in 1999, their second album was released (it was rumoured BZA would do it on his own, but the others joined in): Herman. With guest artists Lickweed (known from De Puta Madre, in French, on Le mental en métal), TLP, Stijn Nijs, NBM and, for the first time joining in from behind the decks, 4T4 (in his own local dialect from the provence of (Belgian) Limburg on Ze woare der nog nie grij voor), inventive beats and varied lyrics, 't Hof was able to improve it's status in the local hiphop scene. Singles were Mag et ntwa mjir zin, and Bol (with a dirty-talking choir of local ladies doing the chorus). The singles were hardly played on the radio compared to their former hit singles and only about 5000 copies of the album were sold eventually. Even now, they hardly play any tracks (if not none whatsoever) from Herman in their shows, despite there are fans out there who do like it after all. The production seems even less polished than their first album, which only ads more to the grittiness and ‘old skool’ or dark atmosphere of the album.

Flip Kowlier later explained: "We were doing too many gigs. And because our debut album had been quite light-hearted, we wanted to show we were serious. So Herman came somewhat too fast after the first one, and became a very dark, too serious album. I took a break for about three months. I was depressed and locked myself up.” During this time, in 2000, Flip Kowlier successfully started a solo career as a singer-songwriter (in a totally different music genre) and released his first solo album, Ocharme ik (‘Poor me’), in 2001. However, the band was still together and working on new material for their next album.

With a bigger budget as a result of their prior success, also came a more professional and matured way of producing. In 2002, they released Rocky 7, their third album. Featuring the hit singles Kom Mor Ip and Zonder Totetrekkerie, which were being played at the radio all the time (and, over 20 years later, are still being heard on the radio now and then), about 10.000 copies of the album were sold, thus becoming their biggest success so far. As a result of their success, ’t Hof van Commerce was asked to perform regularly on bigger music festivals in Belgium and The Netherlands.

In 2005, ’t Hof released their fourth album, entitled Ezoa en niet anders (‘Like this and no different’). It became the first album to be released on their own label Plasticine. Having an artistic background and education, the artworks of the album and singles were all designed by Serge Buyse himself. Once again, the album featured a lot of guest artists such as TLP and Gabriel Rios. Hit singles were Jaloes, Niemand Grodder and Super Commerce Bros.

After touring with their latest album, things got more quiet around ’t Hof van Commerce in the years after, during which time Flip Kowlier also continued his successful solo career and released several albums. In 2011, Kowlier temporarily paused his (still successful) solo career, to continue with 't Hof van Commerce after a long period of silence. This resulted in a new comeback album, Stuntman, released in 2012. Singles were Stuntmann, Baes and Wupperbol. Stuntman was the first album that featured no guest artists. However, in 2013, they released the lesser-known EP Colaboraciones Espectaculares, which almost mainly consists (as the title gives away) of tracks with collaborating artists, of which no tracks were being picked up by local radio stations.

’t Hof van Commerce has been in hiatus between October 2013 and January 2018. In april 2018 they started doing shows again, and released the single BAM! / Truckchauffeur, which featured two new tracks that were both being picked up by Studio Brussel again, igniting a new spark of interest with old and new fans. It was rumoured a new full album could be in the making, but later that year, they released the compilation album Niemand Grodder. De onutwisbaere culturele erfenisse van 't Hof van Commerce instead, which features the two new tracks BAM! and Truckchauffeur, their greatest hits and also some other lesser known tracks that were only released as B-sides on singles before.

In 2023, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their ground breaking debut album En in Izzegem..., ’t Hof van Commerce organised a big ‘one time only’ birthday concert in Kortrijk, on September 2nd (Saturday), with the set list almost mainly containing tracks from En in Izzegem.... Originally it was only supposed to take place only one day, but due to huge popularity the 8000 tickets sold out immediately, to which they decided to make it a weekend and throw in a second concert the day after on Sunday the 3rd as well, to give all the fans the chance to attend. With the 25th birthday, En in Izzegem... was also slightly remastered by 4T4 and re-released on vinyl as a double LP.

It was obvious the fanbase was still strong, motivating them to start working on a new album, LP6, which was released on January 17th, 2025 and is - as the title gives away - their sixth studio album. Prior to the album release, singles In De Chalet and Kommer/Kwel were released. It has been 14 years since their previous album Stuntman was released. As the members of ’t Hof are reaching their 50s, this just might be their final album. Or is it? Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.