Brihang

Brihang, born Boudy Verleye, is a Belgian rapper and hiphop artist, born in Knokke-Heist, West Flanders. He is known for rapping in his own West Flemish dialect. In 2016, his debut album zolangmogelijk was released on Fake Records. His single Steentje, from his second album CASCO, reached 'Gold' status. Brihang has been nominated multiple times for a MIA (Music Industry Awards in Belgium) and won his first MIA in 2024, with the album cover design of his third album Doomvoeding. In a 2018 interview with Belgian newspaper De Tijd, Boudy explained that his name Brihang was inspired by the word brihang, commonly used by West Flemish speakers, means as much as “(friendly) rascal” and comes from the French word brigand. Brihang is a phonetic spelling for the West Flemish dialect form of the French word. Biography Boudy Verleye was born and raised in Knokke-Heist, West Flanders, one of the best-known coastal municipalities in Belgium. His parents owned a jeans store that later was transformed to a skate shop, selling street wear, in which he always got to pick out clothes from. In the store, his father played CD's from artists like Eminem, Limp Bizkit and others, sparking Boudy's interest in hiphop and rap culture. As a high school student, around the age of 15, he went to art school in Ghent and started rapping with hiphop collective De Feesters, also from Knokke. After completing high school, he studied Sculpture (mixed media) at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent. At age 20, in 2013, he self-released his debut Periode Jalisco, for free, which also featured serveral West Flemish guest artists like NTREK and Walter Ego. This wasn’t an instant-success, due to the fact that Brihang wasn’t known yet to the general public, but one could already notice a promising artist in the making. One year later, in 2014, he won De nieuwe lichting (roughly translated ’the new batch’), an annual talent-scouting contest organized by Belgian radio station Studio Brussel, for upcoming promising artists. As a result, he got to perform at Pukkelpop, one of Belgium’s biggest music festivals. In 2016 his first (official) album zolangmogelijk was released on Fake Records, a Ghent-based record label run by the artists behind hiphop collective Uberdope. The album was very well-received by the general public. He moved to Schaerbeek (Brussels) in 2018 and performed at several music festivals. In 2018 he performed at the Nekka-nacht festival on April 21st and on August 27th at a concert with Het Zesde Metaal at the AB in Brussels, which sold out. In 2019, his second album CASCO was released, with Steentje, Oelala, Rommel and Binnenkant being the best-known singles that were being played at Flemish radio stations a lot. This album, on which he thoroughly explores his inner thoughts, doubts, success, changes in his personal life, enjoyed wide media coverage and was presented at a sold-out AB on October 24, 2019. The album immediately captured 4th place in the Ultratop 200 Albums, and earned him six nominations for the MIAs. In 2021, he was nominated two more times for the MIAs. On May 28, 2022, after finishing the CASCO tour, Brihang announced via social media that he would be making a new album. On August 6, 2022, together with fellow-West Flemish artists Flip Kowlier, Wannes Cappelle, Wim Willaert and Wim Opbrouck, he performed at Festival Dranouter under the name Het Beste van ’t Westen (“The Best of the West.”). On October 6, 2023, he released his third album, Doomvoeding. With the cover design, by Valentijn Goethals and Ine Meganck, Brihang won his first MIA. From this album, Telefoontje, Tussenin and Berg were released as singles. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.