Kassav'

Kassav' is a Caribbean band formed in Guadeloupe in 1979. The core members of the band are Jocelyne Béroard, Jacob Desvarieux, Jean-Philippe Marthély, Patrick St. Eloi, Jean-Claude Naimro, Claude Vamur and Georges Décimus (who left to form Volte Face and returned). Kassav' have issued over 20 albums, with a further 12 solo albums by band members.

The music of Kassav is an extension of cadence-lypso or compas bands, such as Grammacks, Exile One, Les Aiglons and Experience 7 of the 1970s.

History

Kassav' was formed in 1979 by Pierre-Edouard Décimus (former musicians from the Les Vikings de Guadeloupe) and Paris studio musician Jacob F. Desvarieux. Together and under the influence of well-known Dominican, Haitian and Guadeloupean kadans or compas bands like Experience 7, Grammacks, Exile One, Les Aiglons, Tabou Combo, Les Freres Dejean, Zekle, etc., they decided to make Guadeloupean carnival music recording it in a more fully orchestrated yet modern and polished style. The name of the band is Antillean Creole for a local dish made from cassava root.

Jocelyne Béroard

Jocelyne Béroard (born 12 September 1954) is a Martinican singer and songwriter. She is one of the lead singers of the compas and zouk band Kassav'. As a solo artist, she helped create zouk, a music genre started by Kassav'. The main members are from Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Biography

Béroard was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, and studied in France, attending the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, before beginning to work with Caribbean artistes as a background singer in 1980. She has served as a lead singer of Kassav' since 1983. She has also recorded several albums as a solo artist. In 1987, she recorded a duet with Philippe Lavil, the hit single "Kolé séré", which peaked at number four in France. In 1999, she was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.

Discography

External links

References

Zouk

Zouk is a fast jump-up carnival beat style originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, originated and popularized by the French Antillean band Kassav' in the 1980s. Very rapid in tempo, the style lost ground in the 1980s due to the strong presence of kadans or compas, the main music of the French Antilles. Today, zouk is the French Antilles compas, also called zouk-love.

Etymology

The Creole word zouke, sekwe, or zouke, etc. from the French verb secouer meaning "shake intensely and repeatedly" was used by Haitian artists who toured the French Antilles during the late 1970s and 1980s.

The word zouk has, over time, come to mean "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French.

History

Zouk was an attempt to develop a proper local music that would lessen or even eradicate the meringue-kadans or compas influence from the French islands. When the MIDI technology came out, Kassav' used it fully, creating new sound in both their fast zouk béton and compas. The Antilleans were all over with zouk. But as other bands from the Caribbean and Africa added the MIDI technology to their music people got used to it, because it was a jump up beat the fast zouk béton faded away In the same 1980s and Antilleans would continue to play and dance meringue-cadence or compas. After all, French Antilleans and Dominicans are important players of the style. However, the problem is that musicians from Martinique and Guadeloupe have calculatedly labeled compas as zouk or zouk-love in order to remain on the map; creating a big confusion in Africa, Cabo Verde, Angola, Bresil, Portugal and other places . Kassav', the originator of the zouk béton, is a compas music band that has taken compas to many places, and is the only band that continues to include zouk béton in its repertoire, though to a lesser extent.