Vengaboys emerged as a Netherlands dance-pop troupe known for their slightly wacky, hook-filled Euro house sound that ruled European singles charts throughout the late 1990s. Dutch DJs Wessel van Diepen and Dennis van den Driesschen, performing as Danski and Delmundo, launched the project and played live shows under the Vengaboys banner from 1992 to 1996 while accumulating a series of underground club successes. In summer 1996 the pair added vocalists and dancers Kim Sasabone, Robin Pors, Roy den Burger, and Denise Post-Van Rijswijk, each of whom joined as permanent members. While Danski and Delmundo focused on studio work, the four singers carried the Vengaboys name across Europe; by February 1998 the single “Up and Down” reached the Top Five in both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Its successor, the buoyant Ibiza beach anthem “We Like to Party! (The Vengabus),” arrived in May and duplicated that achievement across eight countries. The group’s 1999 multi-platinum-selling The Party Album—an international edition of their earlier Benelux debut—also contained the contagious track “Boom Boom Boom Boom,” which climbed to number one in seven territories, along with “We’re Going to Ibiza!,” another chart-topper in their home country and the United Kingdom.
Additional hits arrived via “Kiss When the Sun Don’t Shine,” “Shalala Lala,” and “Uncle John from Jamaica,” all of which appeared on the March 2000 release The Platinum Album. Ahead of that project’s launch, Pors departed for solo work and Yorick Bakker assumed his role. Following the 2001 single “Forever as One,” the pregnant Post-Van Rijswijk stepped away to focus on motherhood, after which Vengaboys entered a hiatus by 2002.
Sasabone, Post-Van Rijswijk, and Bakker resurfaced in 2007 for a European tour, joined by Donny Latupeirissa in place of den Burger. Their full return gained momentum with the 2010 single “Rocket to Uranus,” at which point Pors rejoined after Bakker’s exit. The track’s 3-D video showcased gossip columnist Perez Hilton alongside Euro-dance icon Pete Burns of Dead or Alive. In 2013 the group issued a cover of “Hot Hot Hot,” the soca classic first popularized worldwide in 1987 by Arrow and later by David Johansen under his Buster Poindexter alias. They followed with “2 Brazil” in 2014 to mark the World Cup, then closed the year with The Xmas Party Album and its single “Where Did My Xmas Tree Go?”
Vengaboys visited Australia and New Zealand in 2016 and registered a modest domestic hit with “Supergeil,” a collaboration with Dutch radio DJs Coen and Sander. Late the following year they joined a re-formed Steps for an arena tour of the United Kingdom and released the joint single “The Sign” with German dance act R.I.O. Celebrating their twentieth anniversary, the band unveiled Unplugged No. 1, featuring stripped-down renditions of their 1990s chart-toppers. A fresh take on “Up & Down,” refreshed by Australian DJ Timmy Trumpet, surfaced in 2020. Late 2021 brought “1999 (I Wanna Go Back),” their retitled version of Charli xcx and Troye Sivan’s 2018 single, while Willy William supplied a new iteration of “Boom Boom Boom Boom” in 2023. Marking their twenty-fifth anniversary, Vengaboys delivered We Like to Party: The Greatest Hits Collection in 2024.
