Biography
ABOUT JASMINE KARA
Jasmine Kara was born in a small Swedish town to an Iranian father and a Swedish mother.
Jasmine started performed at talent show for the first time at the age of 11 and took every chance she could to get up on the stage. Writing, singing and performing was all she wanted to do, music was her muse and life ahead seemed beautiful for Jasmine.
Then her life took a dramatic turn. In her mid-teens she fell in love for the first time. But this love soon turned out to be everything but an innocent teenage love affair. Jasmine quickly found herself trapped in the most abusive and destructive relationship imaginable. She started sinking deeper and deeper in a spiral of violence and self harm, losing her music and losing herself completely. This very dark period almost cost her her life.
But when she had reached her absolute lowest depth of misery – a miracle happened. Someone at the psychiatric clinic handed her a guitar. And as soon as she started strumming it, she remembered how good music used to make her feel. How music is a healer. And she realised that music was the only thing that could save her.
Shortly thereafter Jasmine decided to break up and leave. She left home, she left the town she grew up in, the relationship that almost killed her – her old life altogether, in search for a new. She started travelling the world, determined to find a way to make a living as a performing artist.
When 18 year old Jasmine arrived in New York she immediately knew she had come home. The city’s music scene in general and it’s jazz, blues and R&B clubs in particular made her realise that this was where she belonged. She started performing all over the city and took every chance she could get to sing to anyone who’d listen. Knocking on every recordlabels door in Manhattan, Gradually she started noticing how her powerful voice could move her audience, making her even more certain that this was what she needed to do for the rest of her life. However, that dream of a recording contract kept eluding her, despite promises and close calls.
Eventually she was picked up by new independent label Tri-Sound. One of it’s founders was legendary record man Marshall Chess (of Chess Records/Rolling Stones fame), who ended up as Jasmine’s Executive Producer on her debut album ”Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Good Woman Gone Bad”. A collection of classic old school blues and R&B-numbers from the Chess catalogue, but with Jasmine’s remarkable voice, the album was recorded during 48 hours in the well-renowned Cosmos Studio in Stockholm.
Marshall Chess says:
”I’ve been around the blues and singers who are in touch with their soul my whole life. Jasmine Kara is the real deal! The blues like a taste of freedom has truly transformed this young singer. Her Iranian roots, her Swedish upbringing and her recent meeting with – and interpretation of – the American blues is an amazing testament to what a universal language music is. And; to how different expressions of a longing for freedom always have had an underlying, common denominator.”
Ever since her troubled teens, Jasmine had kept a diary, written notes and letters and a blog to document her dramatic roller coaster journey to where she has arrived today. This material makes for very fascinating and captivating reading. SO much so, that she decided to turn it into a autobiographic novel to be launched in conjunction with the album release. The book is called ”Hälsa Henne Att Hon Ska Dö” (”Tell Her That She Is Dead”) and this debut marks the start of yet another creative aspect of the much talented and versatile artist that is Jasmine Kara.
”Blues Aint Nothing But A Good Woman Gone Bad” was nominated in two categories on P3 Guld Radio Awards and became the most sold blues record in Sweden.
It was also released in the UK in and the single “In the Basement” was placed number one on i-Tunes blues list. Several of Jasmines songs were play listed on BBC and she performed live in UK radio shows such as “Robert Elms Show”, Sir Terry Wogan’s show “Weekend Wogan”, and Chris Evans breakfast show.
The clothing company M&Co picked up the single “Try My Love Again” for their TV advertisement aired in UK, Ireland, and Wales.
After the UK release, Jasmine went on tour in Sweden and performed live in all the biggest TV shows such as “Allsång på Skansen” and at the Swedish Crown Princess royal wedding. She was seen in the biggest newspapers in Sweden and media reported widely about the new Swedish talent.
Shortly thereafter, Jasmine went on live tour in UK followed by a launch and breakthrough in Japan.
She received radio listings at Tokyo FM and J-wave.
After an intense spring, it was time to start working on the second album.
Now Jasmine was ready to write her own music. In less than one year, she wrote more than 150 songs. With all the new material in her luggage, she began travelling the world to finish the songs together with carefully selected producers, songwriters and artists.
A year after that, the first self-written singles “Can’t Lie To Me” (premiered at the Swedish Grammy Awards) and “Paralyzed” was released. Both singles had radio listings and Jasmine performed live in some of Sweden’s biggest TV shows such as “Sommarkrysset”, “Lotta på Liseberg”, and “Moraeus m.m.”.
The next year started just as intense and successful as the previous. Jasmine was one of the celebrities on the TV show “Let’s Dance”, the Swedish version of “Dancing with the Stars”.
Thereafter she finally released her second album ”Unbreakable”, which was also the first album released on her own record label ”KarasMatic Music”, and again was seen allover the media in Sweden.
The first single "Smile" of the album coming up this fall has been released in English, Persian and Spanish, and now she has just released the second one "CALL BACK", also in those 3 languages, been featured on Persian RadioJavan, done tv shows for Manoto TV and guest in Sina Valiollah show. At the moment she is nominated för HMM awards (Hollywood Music In Media Awards) with "Call back".
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