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Kungs

Kungs is the French DJ and producer who turned a SoundCloud flip of a gospel-tinged track into one of Europe's biggest house anthems of the 2010s, and never really looked back.

By · datastats · Updated June 15, 2026
Kungs

Kungs is the stage name of Valentin Brunel, a French DJ, producer, and multi-instrumentalist born on November 27, 1996, in Paris, France. He shot to international fame in 2015 at just 18 years old when his bootleg remix of “This Girl”, originally by Australian duo Cookin’ on 3 Burners, went viral on SoundCloud before receiving an official release. The track peaked at #1 in multiple European countries and made Kungs one of the youngest artists ever to achieve such chart dominance.

His sound sits squarely in the tropical house / nu-disco / deep house space, warm, melodic, and built for festival sunsets. Unlike many of his EDM contemporaries who chased drop-heavy aggression, Kungs leaned into groove, melody, and soul, carving out a niche that felt both commercially accessible and credibly “housey.”

Beyond “This Girl,” he has built a steady catalog of radio-friendly deep house cuts, collaborated with a range of vocalists, and performed at major European festivals. He runs his own label, Kung Music, reinforcing his identity as a serious long-term player rather than a one-hit wonder chasing the algorithm.

People search for Kungs constantly because his music is a fixture on streaming playlists, summer compilations, and fitness mixes worldwide, and because his name is short, memorable, and just unusual enough to spark curiosity about the person behind it.

People also ask

Kungs (Valentin Brunel) is based in **Paris, France**, where he grew up and built his career. His exact residential address is private and not publicly disclosed, and that's how it should stay.

Kungs is **French**. He was born and raised in Paris, and he is one of France's most commercially successful electronic music exports of the 2010s.

Kungs was born on **November 27, 1996**, making him **28 years old** as of 2025. He became a chart-topping artist at just 18, which makes his age all the more remarkable relative to his résumé.

No verified, widely-reported figure exists for Kungs' height, it has never been publicly confirmed by the artist or a reliable source. Speculative numbers floating online should be treated as exactly that: speculation.

Yes, though this has nothing to do with the DJ. **Kungsleden** ("The King's Trail") is Sweden's most famous long-distance hiking trail, stretching roughly 440 km through Lapland. It is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular wilderness treks in the world, and serious hikers consistently rate it as absolutely worth the effort, especially the northern section between Abisko and Hemavan.

Phonk's "cringe" reputation stems from its **oversaturation on TikTok and aggressive-driving videos**, where the same distorted 808 cowbell loop became unavoidable background noise. When a niche Memphis rap-revival subgenre gets reduced to a meme format for drift-car content, the backlash is inevitable, that's not a flaw in the music, it's the internet's chewing-up-and-spitting-out machine doing its thing.

Kungs makes **deep house, tropical house, and nu-disco**, melodic, groove-forward electronic music built on soulful samples, warm basslines, and accessible pop hooks. Think Ibiza sunset, not Berlin warehouse.

His signature track is **"This Girl"** (2015), which hit #1 across Europe and remains his defining moment. Other well-known releases include **"Don't You Know"** (with Ephemerals), **"Clap Your Hands,"** **"Be Right Here,"** and **"Anyway"**, all solidifying his reputation as a reliable purveyor of feel-good house music.

Sort of, it depends on how broadly you use the term. **EDM** as a catch-all technically includes Kungs, but within the industry his music is more precisely labelled **deep house or tropical house**. Lumping him in with festival-drop EDM would be like calling all hip-hop "rap", technically defensible, but missing the nuance.

Kungs is from **Paris, France**. He grew up there, started producing in his bedroom as a teenager, and launched his career via SoundCloud before the major labels came knocking.

By most traditional metrics, certified physical and digital sales combined, **"White Christmas"** by Bing Crosby (1942) holds the all-time record, with estimated sales exceeding 50 million copies worldwide. On pure streaming, the conversation shifts to more recent tracks, but Crosby's classic remains the gold standard for raw units moved.

On Spotify alone, **"Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran** held the top streaming spot for years with over 4 billion streams, though it has since been surpassed by **"Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd**, which set the record for most weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Across all platforms and all time, "Blinding Lights" is arguably the most-streamed song in history.

**"White Christmas" by Bing Crosby** wins on total sales and longevity. If you're measuring by modern streaming dominance and chart endurance, **"Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd** makes the strongest case. The answer depends entirely on how you define "biggest", but both are legitimate GOAT-level contenders.

**Lil Jon** is universally considered the king of crunk. He essentially defined and commercialized the genre in the early 2000s with tracks like "Get Low" (with Yin Yang Twins) and albums like *Kings of Crunk*, and he even wore the crown, literally, as part of his image.

Kungs operates in **deep house and tropical house**, with strong nu-disco and funk influences running through his sample choices and grooves. His work sits at the crossroads of club music and mainstream pop, accessible enough for radio, credible enough for the dance floor.

This question needs two songs to compare, none were specified. As a general answer: among Kungs' own catalog, **"This Girl"** was definitively his biggest hit, outperforming every subsequent release in chart positions and cultural reach.

Phonk's roots trace back to **DJ Yella and the Memphis rap scene of the early 1990s**, but as a distinct modern subgenre it was pioneered by producers like **SpaceGhostPurrp** and the **Raider Klan** collective in the early 2010s, who revived and distorted that Memphis sound through chopped samples and heavy 808s. The contemporary TikTok-phonk wave is a different, and more diluted, descendant of that original vision.

**Deep house / tropical house / nu-disco.** Kungs is firmly in the melodic, soulful lane of electronic dance music, groove and melody first, spectacle second.

"Funky" has a genuinely filthy etymology, it likely derives from the Flemish/French word *fonck* or the African word *lu-fuki*, both referring to a strong, earthy body odor. In the 17th–19th centuries it was indeed considered vulgar or offensive. By the 20th century, African American musical culture reclaimed and transformed it into a badge of rhythmic, soulful excellence, which is why "funky" today is a compliment, not an insult.

**James Brown** is the non-negotiable answer. The Godfather of Soul didn't just sing funk, he *invented* the template that everyone else followed. **Prince** makes the strongest case for second place, bringing virtuosic musicianship and genre-defying creativity, but Brown's foundational influence puts him in a category of one.

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