Sam from Nigeria is in love with carnival and makes humpa with an afrobeat

In 2010, Nigerian Sam Dutchy not only fell madly in love with the Oosterhoutse Marleen, but also with sausage brooikes, carnival and hoempapa music. He gets a new dream for the future: to become a carnival artist. And the guys from CV de Gierboys find that very interesting. They join forces and create the carnival song ‘Hoempapa Hoempapa’, a combination of Nigerian afrobeat with the brass bands from Kruikenstad and Kaaiendonk.

Long story short: the Nigerian Sam Dutchy, who in everyday life is simply called Samuel, met his wife on holiday in Greece. There he fell madly in love with the Oosterhoutse Marleen. He moved with her to Brabant, ate his first sausage roll and was dragged into the polonaise.

“I’m in love with her, but also with carnival. That’s what you get when you’re together with a carnival woman from Oosterhout,” laughs Dutchy. Not much later they bought a house together in Oosterhout. “But one where the floats pass by in February.” Add to that the fact that Sam was born on the 11th of the 11th and the party is complete. He is a real Nigerian Smulnar.

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To seal his love even more, the musical Dutchy wrote his first carnival song in 2020: ‘Sausage Roll’. How could it be different. The Tilburg Gierboys got wind of this. They went straight for it.

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“In the end it was still a good challenge,” says Steven de Kok of the Gierboys. “Try to combine Afrobeat with carnival music. And try explaining to Nigerian producers what carnival music sounds like.”

“It’s going well boom Boom“, Dutchy sums up the carnival music from Brabant. He loves it. De Kok adds: “Boom boom, with some hoempapa, horns and a playful text. Then you have all the ingredients of a carnival number. If you add the funk and cheerfulness of the afrobeat to that, you get a whole new sound.” The result can be heard in their song Hoempapa Hoempapa. With a rather literal humpapa.

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“Sam in this case is the Hoempapa. A kind of pagan God, from the time when carnival was not yet a Catholic party. In the clip he gives us carnival and explains how to celebrate it.” This results in a colorful spectacle, in which the Vultureboys are covered with feathers and walk in a polonaise with humpapa Sam Dutchy in front. As a real carnival god, he wears a planet on his head.

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Both Sam and the Gierboys are very happy with the result of the song. For the Nigerian hoempapa afrobeat musician it is a dream to develop further in the carnival scene and for the Gierboys a performance in Nigeria is at the top of the wish list. “It’s a culture clash, but that’s exactly how carnival is at its best. That’s how you really get to know each other.”

Read all about carnival on our theme page.

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