Dennis Princewell Stehr, better known as Mr. Probz, is a Dutch producer and singer-songwriter with multiple global hits under his belt. He started expressing himself creatively at a young age with graffiti, but later discovered his passion for music, exploring various genres. Besides having global success, Mr. Probz has a history with a tremendous amount of life challenging ups-and-downs.
In late 2013 he woke up to find his entire house and recording studio engulfed in flames. Everything was lost in the fire and all he had left was a box of papers, some clothes and fortunately his laptop, which contained most of his recordings.
A few days after the disaster, Mr. Probz appeared on prime-time national TV in The Netherlands to perform his original acoustic version of Waves, which would become one of the biggest hit songs in Dutch music history. He later gave away the album that was salvaged in the fire, The Treatment, to all of his fans for free as a thank you for their continued support.
Mr. Probz has experienced a long list of unusual crossroads moments, including a serious car accident, being shot down in Amsterdam in 2010, the notorious fire and a burglary that resulted in the files for his first official album being stolen. Which he took as a sign that it wasn’t the right time for the release.
The rapper, singer, songwriter and producer initially commenced his career in the hip hop community with well-received collaborations in The Netherlands and United States. It was here he made his first impact on the music industry with his instantly recognizable vocals and emotive lyrics. His career gained more international attention once his single Waves was independently released and later remixed by German DJ Robin Schulz. Both versions would become multi-platinum global successes, reaching number 1 in 51 countries across Europe, Australia and the Middle East, scoring a number one positions in the US billboard Dance charts and earning the number 1 spot on the European airplay chart.
‘Waves’ was one of the first singles to have made the crossover from the download era, to the streaming era. In September 2014, Spotify released the case study “Anatomy of a Hit: How Mr. Probz came to America.” on how the song got discovered globally on the platform and helped the increase in popularity of streaming in general even before becoming a massive radio hit.
The single earned Mr. Probz a Grammy and iHeart Award nomination. He has since featured on collaborations with hip hop artists such as 50 Cent, Anderson .Paak, T.I., Chris Brown as well as international dance artists including David Guetta, Hardwell and Armin van Buuren who have all held the number 1 position for the highly acclaimed DJ Magazine’s Top 100.
In 2015, Mr. Probz released his second multi-platinum follow-up single Nothing Really Matters worldwide, which featured EDM remixes from international DJs including Afrojack. He capped off the year by being named as one of Billboard Magazine’s Top 10 dance/electronic artists, featuring at number 8 alongside acclaimed acts such as DJ Snake, Calvin Harris, Major Lazer and Diplo.
Mr. Probz has spent much time touring globally, performing as a special guest at acclaimed music festivals such as Belgium’s Tomorrowland, Japan’s Ultra, and Australia’s award-winning Stereosonic with Armin van Buuren. This has also enabled him to build a solid reputation and fan base in the dance music arena. Whilst his musical compositions have included works across hip hop, pop and soul, he had now entered the major league of dance music.
On the 18th of May 2017 his short documentary ‘Against The Stream’ was released, showing both his life story and the road to global success and fame. The documentary was released with an official soundtrack that goes by the same name.
Mr. Probz looked back at successful years in the music industry before new entrepreneurial ambitions started knocking on his door in 2017. In 2018, he invested in several businesses, a studio compound and started building his own label ‘Left Lane Recordings’, releasing both his own music as helping talented artists. “I want to give back and build a home base for artists, providing the things that I didn’t have when I was struggling and trying to build my career as an artist”.
In 2019, Mr. Probz was awarded for being the first Dutch artist to have reached over a billion streams on Spotify.
