- country:Netherlands
- region:North Africa
- style(s):Gnawa, Rai
- label:LC music
- type:Band
- artist posted by:Marmoucha
Line up
- Abdel Alariachi (Percussion and drums)
- Dieter van der Westen (Bass)
- Eduard de Vries (Saxophone)
- Khalid Jahklal (Percussion and vocals)
- Mark Nieuwenhuis (Trumpet)
- Roel Denteneer (Guitars)
- Sami el Ghousli (lead vocal)
- Zouhir (Keyboards)
Links
Kasba mixes North African music spices with western musical herbs into a great musical danceable dish. Kasba combines rai with rock, adds a little reggae to it and finishes the dish with a bit of Gnawa.
Kasba consists of musicians with different musical backgrounds, rooted in Morocco and The Netherlands. The combination of these musical spices and the energy created by the group during performances makes Kasba a very exciting and interesting group to watch.
In 2002 Kasba was asked to play on the wedding of crown prince Willem Alexander and his wife Maxima. The concert was broadcasted in 64 countries and the Career of Kasba went up. Kasba played in TV shows and did radio performances. In the summer of 2002 Kasba released their first album Sidi Yahia. To promote this album they toured in Holland, Belgium and Morocco (Rawafid Festival Casablanca, Festival de Rabat, Festival de Rai Berkane and Festival Mawazine). The commercial Moroccan TV-channel M2 broadcasted live-registrations and RTM (Royal Television Maroc) paid a lot of attention to the group.
Right after this tour the group played during the "Made In Holland" project in the well known royal theatre Carre in Amsterdam. After a year of playing in clubs and theatres in Europe, Kasba started to record their second album in 2003. The album "Chouf Chouf" was released at the end of April, 2004. Dutch leading music magazines like Fret and OOR gave very positive reviews on the album and the album was voted in the top 20 of OOR's best underground albums in 2004. In the summer of 2004 the video clip of "Yama Bomba" reached the number 1 position in Morocco and stayed there for more than three months.
Due to the success of their number one position in the Moroccan charts, Kasba was invited to open the exhibition "400 years Morocco the Netherlands". Special guests on this exhibition were prince Willem-Alexander of Holland and Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco. The same year Kasba was asked to play at the Stay Close concert in Amsterdam after the assassination of film- and scenario writer Theo van Gogh along with Dutch leading pop groups. In 2005 Kasba recorded the leader song for the Dutch liberation day that was written by The Lau and recorded by The Lau, Blof, Kasba and Tasha's world. The band toured Morocco for five weeks in the summer where Ikon television recorded a part for the documentary on the group.
In 2006 the documentary on the group was broadcasted on national television. In 2007 Kasba recorded and released the album "Zigzag. The album contains songs in the Arabic, English, French and Dutch language that handle about all different kind of subjects in life, with the recognizable "Kasba Tajine" sound as the band calls it. Oor magazine gave a great review on the album as well as www.musicfrom.nl. The remix by DJ Idriss of the track Bambara was 2 weeks number 1 in the FunX charts. Kasba is also nominated for best world music group in the Netherlands to be chosen before the 17th of November 2007. The band is planning tours in Morocco, Spain, Italy and France for the year 2008 and 2009.
