Rosina Kazi  One of the foot soldiers in Toronto’s underground music scene, Rosina Kazi i

Rosina Kazi 

One of the foot soldiers in Toronto’s underground music scene, Rosina Kazi is the lead singer of the band LAL and she has recorded with State of Bengal, Toronto Tabla Ensemble, Titonton, Moonstarr, Abacus, da grassroots and more. She has been instrumental in the growth of many of the City’s artists and DJ’s, providing venues and forums for their musical expression. More importantly, she has managed to add an air of consciousness and political awareness to many of those events, and this awareness is the most distinctive factor of her music. She grew up in the Canadian-Bangladeshi community where politics and art went hand in hand. She grew up singing and dancing traditional Bengali folk music and dance and went on to play in choirs and bands up until high school. 

Rosina teaches and performs spoken word, which is another outlet for her passion for community and art. Through her community arts organization, ‘COMMUNITY CENTRE’, Rosina also works with youth and facilitates spoken word, song-writing and indie art making programs. Rosina created COMMUNITY CENTRE to teach youth and to support artists who needed support with their own projects. Thus far COMMUNITY CENTRE has produced three albums, for Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah (supported by the OAC), Brazilian singer Luanda Jones (OAC and Canada Council) and Queer Dance Music Artist Troy Jackson. 

Rosina has been composing music professionally for over 12 years. She has recorded 4 albums with the band LAL, and has guest appeared on over 10 recordings (from techno to folk music albums). She also plays harmonium, and composes using samplers and laptops. Her passion is connecting with different communities and having a conversation through words and music. One of the ways she does this is to also program different festivals and community based programs such Masala Mehndi Masti, Afro Latin South Asian Festival, and Mayworks. She has created a style that incorporates her singing voice and her love of reciting poetry, which is very much informed by hip hop and spoken word cultures. She continues to teach spoken word workshops for organizations like Diaspora Dialogues, Buddies in Bad Times, AQSA Zine Collective, The Royal Music Conservatory and more. 

Find out more about Rosina, lal and her revolutionary music here:

Brown Eyed Warrior - Lal-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1zRJ9JIlE

Murr ft. Rosina - My Best Dress:http://vimeo.com/24029446

lal website-http://cargocollective.com/lal/Blog

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