He remembers watching it on the big screen and thinking, “Wow, I’m doing it, I’m actually an actor in Hollywood like I dreamed of as a kid in Ethiopia.” He played a lead character and was nominated for Best Actor. His first break in Hollywood was for a feature film “I Think My Facebook Friend Is Dead” for Amazon Studios. He began auditioning for East-Indian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American acting roles and has achieved much success. So he had to redefine how Hollywood saw him and he started perfecting his Indian accent.
In LA he auditioned as a Somalian pirate for Tom Hanks movie ‘Captain Phillips’ and he was told that he didn’t look African enough. Believe it or not, he was also working part-time as a Palm-Reader. Immediately after Samba became a regular performer at the comedy club where many comedy legends started their careers like Richard Pryor, Robin Williams and, Jim Carrey. When he moved to LA, within 3 months he won the March Comedy Madness Award comedy competition featuring 64 of LA’s best up-and-coming comedians at the Comedy Store. In 2011 Samba took his talent to America. In Africa, they say “when you laugh, you share your soul with another.” Comedy to me is about that reminding everyone that we are not that different and that laughter heals and unites us all. There’s no greater feeling than seeing people cry of laughter. Also you will learn new things about the world from my unique perspective and make you leave high on joy and inspiration.
My shows are upbeat, high energy, and make you feel good. All that combined with my travel and education have made me a very global-minded and a unifying performer. My mother is a Muslim and my dad is a Christian. I have a very multicultural background: I’m half African, and half European.
“When I get on stage, my goal is to inspire you and make you laugh as hard as you can. Samba with his knack to pretend, do voices, act-outs, and sound effects lend itself perfectly to acting. Samba went on to win the biggest national comedy contest in Holland in 2006 and toured around the country with 3 comedy specials. “Someone came up to me and said, “You’re such a funny stand-up comedian.” “I was like ‘oh, okay. When he went on stage to perform he remembers people were dying of laughter. He wrote a 7-minute comedic monologue for open mic night in college. In 2001, at age 18, Samba moved to Holland from Ethiopia to study theatre. He knew he would become an actor one-day in Hollywood. This game fueled Samba’s desire for acting.
When Samba was 12 years old he remembers the CD-ROM game “Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Chair.” The game allowed an individual to work with Steven Spielberg to make a short film in the Universal Studios lot.