Vengaboys

Vengaboys are a Dutch Eurodance group, although they described themselves as an international group with members from Brazil, Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, and Spain, that came to prominence in 1997. Some of their most successful singles include "Uncle John from Jamaica", "We're Going to Ibiza", "Boom Boom Boom Boom", "Up & Down", "We Like to Party", "Kiss (When the Sun Don't Shine)", "Cheekah Bow Bow (That Computer Song)" and "Shalala Lala". The V in their name is pronounced with a soft "B" sound, so that it is pronounced like "Bengaboys". A guest-singer from Spain, for the producer's previous project Nakatomi, kept repeatedly singing Venga in their songs, which means "come on" in Spanish. This led to the name Vengaboys as their following project.

Background

Never critically acclaimed, the group continued making records that were distinctly Eurobeat (the music video of "Kiss" even features one of the dancers from Para Para All Stars performing a Para Para dance), following in the footsteps of previous Dutch-Dance sensations 2 Unlimited. The ploy worked and by the beginning of the year 2000, the group had achieved four top 10 entries, including two number-one hits ("Boom Boom Boom Boom" and "We're Going to Ibiza"). The group's success continued throughout the beginning of the 21st century, with the The Platinum Album (their third album release) going top 10, spawning three big hits ("Kiss", "Shala Lala" and "Uncle John From Jamaica") and two other known tracks ("Cheekah Bow-Bow (That Computer Song)" which included their fifth cyber-member Cheekah, and the ballad "Forever As One," which gained more notoriety for its video, which was forbidden after the group violated copyright laws by using copyrighted pictures of them meeting pop group Westlife with out permission). By mid-2001, after nearly ten top 10 hits, the group partly disappeared from the music world and went back to working on the club scene.

Their American debut The Party Album peaked at #86 on the US Billboard 200 album sales chart. At the time, overall CD sales were at a highpoint in the USA, which played a role in the album going gold (500,000 units). This is significant as only a few European dance artists have attained similar success. The main single off their debut was "We Like To Party" which cracked the Top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 and sold 405,000.

More recently the band is famous for performing often sold-out gigs at student venues across the United Kingdom. Recent performances have taken place in such notable clubs as City Edinburgh, Rubix at University of Surrey and 53 degrees at University of Central Lancashire

2008

The band have been working on new material whilst touring the UK (usually nightclub venues), and will release their first single in 7 years, "Partylife" later this year.

They were recently spotted performing an outstanding set in Darlington at the world famous club Escapades. The set had the audience mesmorised at their ability not to mime, but to mime terribly. The audience (the ones that stayed) spent half the night comparing the actual members to the members on the advertisement posters and realising the difference was astonishing.

Members

Current members

Kim Sasabone

(Camouflage Outfit) (1997-Present) (DOB) (4/1/1976)

Denise Post-Van Rijswijk

(Disco outfit) (1997-Present) (DOB) (10/20/1978)

Yorick Bakker

(Sailor outfit) (1999-Present) (DOB) (7/10/1976)

Donny Latupeirissa

(Cowboy outfit) (2006-Present)

Past members

Robin Pors

(Sailor outfit) (1997-1999) (DOB) (1/1/1978)

Roy Olivero-Den Burger

(known formally as Roy Darman, but that was a mistake many websites made) (Cowboy outfit) (1997-2004) (DOB) (7/31/1975)

Composers

Discography

Albums

Year	Album
1998	The Party Album 1st studio album
1999	Greatest Hits Vol. 1 re-released version of The Party Album contains 5 additionial songs
1999	The Remix Album remix album
2000	The Platinum Album 2nd studio album

Singles

Year	Single	Album	Peak positions
Year	Single	Album	NL	UK	AUS	US	GER	PL
1997	"Parade de Tettas"	Greatest Hits Vol. 1	14	-	-	-	-	-
1998	"To Brazil"	Greatest Hits Vol. 1 / The Party Album	22	5	-	-	-	-
	"Up & Down"		5	4	-	-	12	2
	"We Like to Party"		2	3	7	26	4	1
	"Boom Boom Boom Boom"		1	1	3	84	6	9
1999	"We're Going to Ibiza"		1	1	27	-	9	1
1999	"Kiss (When The Sun Don't Shine)"	The Platinum Album	2	3	17	-	10	1
2000	"Shalala Lala"		2	5	4	-	3	1
	"Uncle John from Jamaica"		7	6	45	-	12	8
	"Megamix"	The Remix Album	-	-	-	-	55	-
	"Cheekah Bow Bow (That Computer Song)"	The Platinum Album	32	19	-	-	34	14
2001	"Forever as One"	The Platinum Album	-	28	-	-	79	-

Media occurrences

The song "We Like to Party" was played in Busch Stadium after the final out of the 2006 World Series, which was broadcast on Fox.
The beat from the song "We Like to Party" was played in numerous commercials for Six Flags.
The song "Boom Boom Boom Boom" was the main song of Jeux Sans Frontieres 1999.
For several seasons in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Arsenal Football Club were called the "Wenger Boys", a reference to the Vengaboys. In turn on the popular Sky Sports show "Soccer AM" whenever the reference was made it would be accompanied by two members of the crew dancing to the Vengaboys track "We Like to Party".
Students at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick in Ireland spent all of their Rag Week allowance to have the Vengaboys perform for their 2007 Rag Week. They also performed at Royal Holloway, University of London's Summer Ball on the 8 June and at Birmingham University's Freshers' Ball on the 28 September 2007.
According to the website of the Danish annual town celebration, called "Høtte" in the city Vojens in Denmark, The Vengaboys had a come-back performance at the 25th of August 2007. See http://www.vojenshoette.dk/nyheder.0.html (Danish website).
Roy Olivero-Den Burger, who acquired a "cowboy" image for the work in the band, went on to become a Flight Attendant for KLM Dutch airlines after the band's breakup. A video [1] was posted on YouTube on October 16, 2006 showing Roy during safety instructional procedure before a flight from Amsterdam to London Heathrow. The person that recorded Roy and posted the video was not aware of his identity until around May 9, 2007 when comments pointing out it is the former Vengaboys member featured on the recording started coming in.