Ben Penn (NL)

Ben Penn is the stage name of Tilburg-based artist, producer and DJ Jeroen Opstelten.
Before Jeroen Opstelten released his first music on Young Marco's label Safe Trip, he was known as one half of the artist duo Leonard and Jeroen. For 12 years Jeroen and Leonard Bedaux formed this duo, which gained national and international attention with their absurdist short films and the unprecedentedly popular attraction De Wawazda.

At the time of Leonard and Jeroen, Jeroen was already producing and DJ'ing, but after the breakup of the duo, music became free. That's when the stage name Ben Penn was born. During that period Jeroen was one of the early adapters as a resident at Red Light radio with his jazz show Hallo?, in which he hosted many guests such as Jameszoo, Benny Sings, Palo Santo and Steven De Peven. He also hosted club nights such as The Gin Gin (Jazz, Latin, Disco, Funk, Boogie, Hip Hop) and Cabrio (early House). His own sets at club nights and festivals were at first mainly steeped in Boogie and Disco. Then Electro and early House were added, and later he increasingly turned to genre-transcending sets. His spinning style created a bond with the Rednose District family, especially with Steven De Peven and Palo Santo, whom he spun together regularly. His genre-transcending nature can be heard in his productions. At a club night he met Young Marco, another genre-transcending DJ. From this came two EPs and a split EP for Marco's label Safe Trip in which consciously and unconsciously many genres influenced his production style. After this, Jeroen took a few years to work on his debut album Everything, which has just been freshly completed and whose track NOW was recently released on the collector SUPER-SONIC FAMILY VOL. 2. Jeroen likes the idea that he is just a tool for the music to create itself. He considers himself a layman in the field of production and, in a way, prefers to keep it that way. This gives him tremendous freedom to produce innovatively, intuitive and cross genre.