Kasbah Rockers

released October 10, 2008

Kasbah Rockers is a new project of Pat Jabbar, Youssef El Mejjad and different guests from the Barraka El Farnatshi label, having combined chilling Trip Hop beats, Rai’n’B, Dub and progressive Dance sounds with traditional Moroccan influences and instruments. Bill Laswell who is playing the bass on 11 tracks, grooves along with eclectic artists such as Youssef El Mejjad from Amira Saqati (Marrakech-Morocco), Abdelaziz Lamari and Abdelkader Belkacem from Maghrebika (Oran & Skikda-Algeria) or Kadir & Erdem from the Swiss-Turkish Hip Hop crew Makale. Their distinctive musical identities, are all fully integrated in a dense and compact soundscape. For instance to the improvised recording sessions of the “bad girls” from B-Net Marrakech, or to the great and evocative voice of the young Turkish singer Oezlem Ylmaz. Another new artistic discovery are Hamza & Anass, the two brothers from the Marrakshi crew HS, rappin’ in French and Arabic about Moroccan street reality or moral and social issues.
The lyrical content of most of the other songs is much committed to the daily examinations of young Muslims in the western world, or on the other hand, to the confrontation with “western values” in an Islamic world.
Anti Iraq-war song “Falludjah Car” is sung in Turkish and Arabic, “Bledstyle” in Turkish only. But also more romantic lyrics as in “Shta” do aerate the whole “educative” concept and messages.
Some songs of the album are in the film soundtrack of Ridley Scott’s “Body Of Lies”, as in the TV series “The Looming Tower” or “Leathel Weapon”, etc..

Bill Laswell
B-Net Marrakech
Makale
Özlem Yilmaz