Dam Yankee

Ray Ellin is a New York comedian, Comedy Cellar regular and the owner of Aruba Ray's Comedy Club, the number one nightlife activity on TripAdvisor in the entire country of Aruba. He started going to Aruba by accident in 2012, fell in love with the island and opened the club a year later. His colleagues thought he was nuts. They were wrong.

Known for his crowd work and his entrepreneurial streak, Ray has also self-financed a documen...

Rael Lomoti grew up in the Turkana region of northwest Kenya, where girls as young as 12 are given away in marriage, football is only for boys and education is considered a luxury that communities cannot afford. 

Her father moved the family to Nairobi so his children could go to school. Her mother died working in a flower plantation, exposed to pesticides with no worker safety protections. A German nun spotted Rael playing foo...

Tom Cotter has been doing stand-up for 40 years. He is the rapid fire comedian who made it to the AGT finals, lost to a pack of dogs, performed with Joan Rivers in what turned out to be one of her last national television appearances, did eight years on cruise ships, and once had to run out through a kitchen because a heckler wanted to kill him.

He is now on his first tour of the Netherlands with his touring partner Ray Allen, and ...

South African comedian Kevin Fraser is celebrating ten years in comedy with his Decadence tour  and he is doing it the hard way, with sold-out shows across South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and now Europe.

Known for his viral observational comedy and character work, Kevin brings something most comedians do not, twelve years as a professional DJ before he ever picked up a mic for a punchline. That background shaped everythin...

Two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter is known for Liquid Spirit, Take Me to the Alley and No Love Dying. Behind those songs is a story that most people have never heard in full.

In this episode Gregory goes back to the beginning, growing up in Bakersfield, California, with a minister mother who dragged her church to the streets, a brother who believed in him before he believed in himself, and a community shaped by both extraordina...

Jiaoying Summers is one of the most fearless comedians working today. She owns two comedy clubs, runs a production studio, hosts the Tiger Mommy podcast, and is currently on her first European tour. She is also 35 weeks pregnant and has not slept properly in weeks.

Success has come far faster than happiness for comedian Jiaoying Summers. In just a few short years, the Chinese immigrant went from hosting open mics on Zoom to starrin...

In this episode of the Dam Yankee podcast, host Zack Newmark sits down with comedian, voice actor, and American Netherlander Greg Shapiro. Best known across the globe as the voice of Donald Trump in the viral "America First, Netherlands Second" video, Shapiro gets real about the high stakes of modern politics.

He doesn't mince words about the future of t...

Swiss-French DJ, record producer and #dreamtrack inventor Quentin Mosimann sat down with Dam Yankee host Zack Newmark fresh off a sleepless night after announcing a sold-out show at the Accor Arena in Paris for 19,000 people. 

After 15 years as a DJ, something shifted in the last two years. The social numbers went up, the gig requests went up, and suddenly Quentin was playing 150 shows a year while trying to figure out how to ...

Join host Zack Newmark on this unforgettable episode of Dam Yankee for a profound and deeply personal conversation with six-time Grammy-nominated Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti. Currently traversing Europe on a massive tour to support his introspective new album, Journey Through Life, Femi stops by to reveal the complex man behind the roaring saxophone and pulsating rhythms.

In a raw, highly vulnerable interview, Femi explains the ingen...

He’s the world’s most famous purple philosopher, but even global icons get tired of living out of a suitcase. In this milestone 50th episode of the Dam Yankee podcast, host Zack Newmark sits down with the one and only Randy Feltface for a raw, hilarious, and unexpectedly vulnerable look at the fabricated man behind the comedy. The show is out now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more services.

Fresh off a s...

How does a 20-year "identity erasure" lead to a career in dark comedy? In this episode of Dam Yankee, host Zack Neumark sits down with Israeli comedian Nira Tal to uncover the raw reality behind her midlife pivot. After moving to the Netherlands for love, Tal admits that for two decades, "There was no Nira."

Following a severe corporate burnout at age 38, Tal turned to the stage to reclaim her voice. Today, she is a staple at Comed...

In an era of "alpha male" influencers and aggressive internet posturing, Rogier Bak is offering a different kind of rescue. Speaking on the latest episode of the Dam Yankee podcast with host Zack Newmark, the Amsterdam-based comedian dissected the friction between modern masculinity and his own upbringing. Bak, known for his viral takes on cultural identity, noted that his skepticism of the "manosphere" isn't just a bit; it’s...

Zack Newmark sits down with Amsterdam-based comedian Daniel Yazbek. Originally from Johannesburg, Daniel traded a master's degree in computer science for a microphone and hasn't looked back since.

Daniel opens up about growing up with two heroin addict parents, the complicated relationship with his mother, and how a childhood shaped by chaos became the foundation for his comedy. He also talks about building the Amsterdam English co...

How does a privileged woman from India become a "Person of Color" overnight? In this episode of Dam Yankee, host Zack Newmark sits down with stand-up comedian, storyteller, and activist Rashi Agarwal to discuss her viral rise in the Amsterdam comedy scene and her refusal to "play it safe" for Western audiences. The episode is out now on YouTube,...

Zack Newmark sits down with Amsterdam-based drag queen performer Charlene Coco, to talk about identity, fear, freedom, and what it really means to show up as yourself. Charlene Coco was voted Best New Drag in Town after her debut appearance in Amsterdam in 2019.

Charlene is the drag persona born from the mind of Charlie Robertson, a British performer based in Amsterdam who also uses drag to help offices become more tolerant and inc...

When news of the 2021 Atlanta massage parlor shootings reached Amsterdam, filmmaker Kiriko Mechanicus felt a chilling connection. "I realized when I had read about this incident that it somehow also felt as if I was part of his sick desire," the Dutch-Japan...

From her childhood playing classical piano in China to her emergence as a multilingual pop talent, Irène Schrader has used music to bridge the various cultures she calls her own. Traveling from her current base in Paris back to her familiar former home of Amsterdam, it was the pivotal moments experiencing the Dutch capital's electronic scene, her parents' varied music taste, and their occasional "tough love" that gave her the confi...

Nadine Froughi describes herself as "spiritually" Dutch, yet her comedy thrives on the friction between her adopted home and her complex, international roots. This week on Dam Yankee, the comedian sits down with host Zack Newmark to discuss her sudden ascent from the local Amsterdam scene to viral social media stardom.

For years, Froughi shared c...

In this episode of the Dam Yankee podcast, host Zack Newmark sits down with Sjoerd Scott, a Sint Maarten-born comedian whose path to the stage was paved with irony. While repeatedly failing his law thesis on financial crimes, Scott fell victim to a €1,900 telephone scam. A fraudster posing as a Dutch Supreme Court official convinced him to dr...