Sarah Yaseen

Sarah Yaseen is a singer, producer and musician with Pakistani roots living in the UK. With a soulful tone to her beautiful voice, she sings spiritually inspiring Nasheeds of love and peace. She was trained by her father from a young age and has performed her songs nationally, as well as having performed Urdu nazams in front of female audiences, some as large as 3000. In 2003, Sarah began writing and composing her own lyrics and founded a nasheed group of female children called WING. WING has successfully performed at many cultural and diversity events, helping to raise awareness of the tradition of Islam through simple songs. Sarah is also a self-taught producer and will be shortly releasing her soulful album 'PEACE'.
 
Sarah Sayeed is a London based MC, vocalist and producer who has worked the UK scene for the last ten years. She has performed across venues in Europe and has just returned from a recording tour in San Francisco and Toronto. Fearless in her approach to music, Sarah has been writing lyrics from a young age, developing her own unique style of wordplay on the Manchester live circuit during her early twenties. Influenced by conscious hip hop artists such as Tribe Called Quest and MCs such as Roxanne Shante, she was keen to develop her content, her style and her bold voice. Her subject matter dotes on female independence and autonomy, exposure of political misdemeanors, and a comment of the world at large.
 
Mizgin was born in a mountain village, in the Turkish part of Kurdistan. At the tender age of two, she contracted polio, leaving her legs partly paralyzed, thus never going school and leading a very isolated life. To occupy her time she taught herself to sing and to play the Saz , which in turn became her way of expression. At the age of 18 she moved to Istanbul, and soon after to Denmark, but her music still has roots in the Kurdish mountains, and their wild beauty. In 2007, Mizgin was chosen as the official refugee artist of the year.
 
Shohreh Shahrzad has Iranian roots. She started her musical career with the daff, a traditional Iranian hand drum. Today she composes her own music and combines it with dancing and pictorial art, this is called “innin”. She has played with Mizgin since 2003.
 
Simona Abdallah was born 1979 in Germany, from Palestinian parents. She grew up in Denmark and today has her home in Copenhagen. She plays Arabic percussion, especially darbuka, despite the fact that this is considered a masculine instrument, and almost always played by men. Therefore she is one of very few women in the world from The Middle East who play’s this instrument professionally. Simona is self-taught and has been playing since she was 15. One of her goals is to record an album that fuses western music, rock, house and pop with the Middle Eastern rhythm. To facilitate a meeting of cultures is a wish close to Simonas heart. Simona performs as a soloist, and is a part of The Middle East Peace Orchestra (http://www.peacemusic.dk) and Missing Voices (http://www.mwmm.co.uk/artists.asp#)
 
Bad Brya, was born in Amsterdam in 1982 and began writing lyrics at the tender age of 14. Inspired by her brother’s musical taste in rap and intrigued with how rappers got their messages out there, she became inseparable from her pad and pen. Influenced by Hip Hop, Reggae and Arabic music styles to name a few. Bad Byras talent was spotted instantly, going from performing in youth centres and at open mic nights to talent shows such as Most Wanted to her very own documentary: RESPECT. Her documentary delivers a light on her string of setbacks, which evidently have not stopped her in her tracks. In 2003 she received the best talent award presented by Micheal Franti from Spearhead and in 2005, was one of the supporting acts for Kasba. A success of many was her song ‘On my way,’ which managed to hold a spot in the top 10 charts in Morrocco in 2005 for a year. Having toured The Balkans, Tanzania, Amsterdam, Vietnam and more, this Moroccan female Mc leaves a great impression wherever she performs, with her sublime charisma and uplifting spirit.
 
Teema is a singer with Moroccan roots, residing in Holland. She was a student at The Music School of Amsterdam as a talented 11-year old, where she sang in a band and was one of the vocalists of the Gospel World Choir. In her teenage years she formed the R’n B group “Damez” with her best friend. They recorded several tracks and performed at festivals in Europe and in Canada. During the last couple of years she has focused more on her Arabic musical roots.
 
Jasmin is a 19 year old Danish singer with roots in the Middle East. She grew up with the sounds of Gypsy Kings and has since had a passion for music and writing lyrics. She started working seriously with her talents at the age of 16, when she wrote her first song. Since then she has been on several compilations, and on the Danish TV show Allstars. The fact that Jasmin is of mixed parentage and has her roots in The Middle East can be clearly heard in her music, which always has an Arab twist