What is a leeuloop?’ I ask Robbie Wessels. He gives a thoughtful chuckle before replying. ‘It’s something of a walk we do in South Africa,’ he explains in a rumbling Afrikaaner accent seemingly older than his 28 years. ‘It’s a type of dance – a bit like the Afrikaaner Macarena. Everyone has their own opinion about it.’
They do indeed. Robbie achieved widespread local fame in his home country after his song, ‘Leeuloop’, featured on a Vodafone advert, before it was eventually pulled after a number of complaints. The advert featured the sight of a bullnecked Wessels strutting like an exasperated rubber chicken, backed by a cadre of female dancers. It became notorious, associated with a broad, countrfied, almost ‘redneck’ humour, an image that jars with the quiet-spoken individual who answers my questions.
You sense that Wessels is something of a homebody, happiest amongst the Afrikaaner communities where he is best known. His songs are stories which originate from these self same groups. ‘Leeuloop came from a little town in South Africa. I was performing there and I heard a story about this guy who got on the bar and did a leeuloop where he pulled down his pants and roared like a lion. They’re the stories that you pick up on the road when you travel.
‘One of my songs, ‘Please My Love’, is about how this one guy accidentally kisses another girl in a bar and his girlfriend’s best friend sees him, and so then it’s this whole mission of him driving to his girlfriend’s house to tell his girl what happened and that he’s very sorry. At the end it finishes in a total disaster, but then they kiss and make up.’
Humour is a major part of Wessels music; it is no surprise given his previous experience in South African sitcoms. He even starred in his own risque teen comedy back in his homeland, Poena is Koning – it’s like an Afrikaaner Superbad or Porkys. ‘The man who wrote it is well known for naughty scenes. It was one of those once in a lifetime things. But I don’t think I’ll make another film like that.’ It is a period in his career which he is clearly keen to put behind him: ‘I’ve tired of that character now,’ he says, and admits that he will attempt only serious drama in the future.
It is all in stark contrast to Wessels’ time spent growing up in South Africa. He was raised in rural Free State where rugby was his passion, which accounts for his rather solid frame. His eventual career ‘was something I never expected,’ he says. ‘I grew up on a farm. I went to Pretoria to study drama. I loved the acting thing, but at nights I would sing and play guitar for the guys around the campfire at the hostel.’
The other side of Wessels’ music leans more towards traditional Afrikaaner folk – his next album is inspired by the rugged beauty of South Africa’s hills and mountains, he tells me. Indeed, Robbie has a clear love of his homeland and after the last three years of travelling, ‘got to know South Africa and to love it,’ he says. It is all rather anathema to the raunchy teen comedies and the raucousness of the Leeuloop.
Singing only in Afrikaaner, Robbie Wessels certainly isn’t chasing global recognition, but he is a contradictory character: an extrovert on-stage, a quiet, thoughtful figure in private. Perhaps, in the end, he isn’t as much of a mad man as he appears, but it won’t stop him dancing like one.
Robbie Wessels: Come Do The Leeuloop appears at the One to One Hotel, Abu Dhabi at 9pm on February 19. Tickets are available at www.timeouttickets.com.
