Lange Frans En Baas b

Both Lange Frans alias of Frans Frederiks and Baas B alias of Bart Zeilstra grew up in Diemen, Netherlands.

In 1997 they formed D-Men. The English pronunciation of "D-Men" is similar to the Dutch pronunciation of the name of their home town. As D-Men they released their first single in 1999, which was called Zoveel Mensen "So Many People", and they won a talent hunt that was organised by Stichting Grap "Joke Foundation" in 2001. In 2003 D-Men was joined by the artists Brace, Yes-R & Soesi B, Negativ and DJ Mba. During this time D-Men acquired some fame within the underground hip hop scene of Amsterdam.

Lange Frans & Baas B started to release singles as a duo in 2004. Their second single Moppie "Babe" became a huge hit. Though they performed as a duo, the chorus of this song was sung by Brace. Their third single Zinloos "Senseless", a protest against so-called senseless violence random street violence without a clear reason or sprung from minor incidents a current hot topic in the Netherlands, became a number one hit in the Dutch charts at the end of the same year. On this track they were joined by singer Ninthe. After the assassination of filmer and critic Theo van Gogh by Muslim fanatic Mohammed Bouyeri on November 2nd 2004 the song Zinloos was adjusted. Parts of the lyrics were changed in order to address Theo van Gogh's assassination.