OMDAT HET KAN & AVERAGE ROB KEEP ON SHTAMPING IN THE FREE WORLD

Belgian boys through and through, DJ Jasper Donkers aka Omdat Het Kan and MC Average Rob celebrate life in the silliest way imaginable, to the sound of 135 BPM-and-over ‘shtamp’ beats. But what on Earth is shtamp? Definitely not to be confused with the nation’s vegetable mash dish, carrot ‘stoemp’, shtamp is slowly but surely turning into the new hot sound of Belgium. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new genre of dance music emerge, let alone propel its chief figureheads to a gig at the Library in next to no time at all, so yesterday was the ideal time to go and find out what these two silly boys have got to say about it.

How did the two of you start working together?

Rob: “We met while working for a satirical magazine called Humo. We made lots of funny videos together during our time at the company, including many skits here at Tomorrowland. Jasper was always the guy behind the camera and I was just a persona doing the jokes. We were beating large brands with their corporate videos in terms of views, like we cracked some kind of code.”

Jasper: “Then one day I asked Rob if he wanted to be an MC during my DJ performances. We don’t remember much of our very first gig, except that it felt good and that we wanted to continue doing it.”

Tomorrowland’s crowd is fairly international, so tell us: what does Omdat Het Kan stand for?

Jasper: “We do a lot of silly things and people often ask us: Why are you doing this? And our answer is always the same: ‘Omdat het kan’, which literally means ‘because it’s possible’.”

What kind of silly things are you referring to?

Rob: “We play every single genre over the course of one hour, except reggaeton, simply because it’s not fast enough. We play music that people have recently started calling shtamp – not just us, but many others in Belgium as well.”

Jasper: “A lot of it is related to hardstyle, but it can also be drum & bass. We play a lot of tracks everyone is familiar with, and then put a very intense hardstyle or drum & bass kick behind it.”

Besides the music you Belgians also switch between languages a lot. Can you please explain what’s going on to the international ravers who read this?

Jasper: “It's nice to find common ground in this country. We’re often so divided because some of us speak French while others speak Dutch. It's through music, football and food that we unite. I think we are able to connect with people because we are good at bringing cool music and dance vibes.”

You played the Gathering on Thursday and the Library on Friday. What was it like?

Rob: “Well, Thursday was rainy to start with, but when we came on the sun started shining. I think it’s the beats that literally broke through the clouds. Then today we played the Library at 16:00. It’s hard to fill up that stage in the afternoon, but we’ve done it two weeks in a row now”.

Jasper: “I love doing sets on big stages early in the day. There’s no competition from the Tiësto’s of this world, so everyone just comes to us to have a good time and they party hard, I can tell you that. It’s because we don’t give them a break and keep shtamping!”

Jhon Muriel

Venezuela and Slovenia

“I had a dream last night that I was flying over DreamVille, high above the clouds and onto the festival site,” David tells us with a smile reaching from ear to ear. “Being here with Jhon makes me feel just as free as in the dream.” You can tell that these two truly carry the spirit of Tomorrowland in their hearts.