- country:Martinique
- label:Zouk Sarl
- artist posted by:Georg Leitner Productions GmbH
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Kassav' (Antillean Creole for a local dish made from cassava root) is a Caribbean zouk and mostly compas music band formed in Paris in 1979. The core members of the band are Jocelyne Beroard, Jacob Desvarieux, Jean-Philippe Marthely, Patrick St. Eloi, Jean-Claude Naimro, Claude Vamur and Georges Decimus (who left to form Volte Face and returned). Kassav' have issued over 20 albums, with a further 12 solo albums by band members.
Kassav' was formed in 1979 by Pierre-Edouard Decimus (former musicians from the Les Vikings de Guadeloupe) and Paris studio musician Jacob F. Desvarieux. Together and under the influence of well-known Dominican and Guadeloupean kadans or compas bands like Experience 7, Grammacks and Exile One, they decided to make Guadeloupean carnival music and record it in a more fully orchestrated yet modern and polished style. Kassav' created its own style by introducing an eleven-piece gwo ka unit and two lead singers, tambour, ti bwa, biguine, cadence-lypso: calypso and mostly cadence or compas with full use of the MIDI technology. In the 1980s they took Caribbean music to another level by recording in the new digital format.