Miquel Giovanni van Broekhoven a.k.a. Brooklan was born in Paramaribo, Surinam on the 23th of June 1984.
He grew up alone with his mother but at the age of 2 he was send to a Youth Hostel away from the city as his mother joined the Army.
When Miquel was 4 he was taken in by his grandmother, where he spend most of his childhood.
In school Miquel was often involved in fightings and misbehaviour but that never effected his learning.
Around the age of 12 he found out about his love for music..
He tried writing his own songs but could never really finish one, so he just stuck to listening instead of making music.
In 2002 Miquel got into a major conflict where he was seriously injured and ended up in a Hospital for 2 weeks.
Shortly after that he moved to Amsterdam.
Life in Amsterdam was not as he had expected.
School was not in his interest and a good job was hard to find.
It was then when he decided to take "music-thing" more serious.
Because english is not the official language of Surinam, Miquel had much to learn and he was open for that.
As he was studying the jamaican patua and developing, doors started to open for him.
Meanwhile he scored numerous hits in Surinam that made him even more confident about making his dream come true, and that is 'going global'.
Recording in the best studio's from the Netherlands to Germany his remarkable voice attracted the attention of many people.
J.J. Walgreen was Brooklan's first manager and made a lot possible for this very talented young artist but past away in august 2005.
Things kind of slowed down eversince but started to look up again when Brook hooked up with the man who was responsible for all his hits in Surinam, Songwriter/Singer/Producer 'Bennito Riley a.k.a. Bunn'.
New plans were made but the dream remained the same.
Hard work, focus and patience started to pay of.
Brook got to collaborate with big names in the international reggae/dancehall scene and some of Hollands hottest selectors.
Also was he asked to be the opening acts of big artists like Elephantman, Eek A Mouse, Buju Banton, Culture, Israel Vibration, etc..
In november 2005 Brooklan was part of The Aids Benefit concert that was held in Surinam along with other artists, and in the summer of 2006 he gave a shocking performance at the Bob Marley Tribute concert in Amsterdam.
Currently Brooklan is still resident in Amsterdam and working hard on achieving his goal.
