Moving On With Life

Musician
Zihan Jasper Al-Rashid
Talks to
Rakibul Hasan

	courtesy: Jasper Al-Rashid

I studied at four different schools. Stating from Silver Bells Kindergarten in Chittagong, to Saint Placid School, then Bangladesh International School and for a brief period of time, Maple Leaf School. I was never a talkative person and I used to choose my friends very carefully. As a result, I did not have a lot of friends in school, however, the few friends that I had were very close to me. I still cherish the memory of hanging out with my friends in random places. As a student, I was not much of a troublemaker and managed to score quite good grades, therefore my teachers were always in good terms with me. I was involved in music from a very young age. In fact, I did my first live performance when I was only a grade 2 student in Silver Bells. There was a cultural function in school and my mom put my name for a children's choir. Incidentally, when I was rehearsing for the choir, the teacher who was there to give us singing lessons, discovered some kind of potential in me and suggested me to practise singing seriously. Thus I learned classical music from Ustad Helal Uddin for almost seven years. I also started to perform here and there including CTV, a local television channel in Chittagong.

I moved to Dhaka when I was in grade 7 and got myself admitted into Bangladesh International School. The scenario in Dhaka was obviously different from Chittagong. It took me quite some time to adjust with the hectic lifestyle of the capital. However, eventually I got the vibe and made new friends. I took my O and Al level exams privately from British Council. Ever since I moved to Dhaka, I spent most of my time experimenting with music, and my first album 'Kantatarer Bera,' came out in 2008 in collaboration with DJ Raf. The album was unique in the sense that most of its songs were instrumental hip-hop which was not very familiar in Bangladeshi music scene back then. Before that in 2007, I joined my band Groovetrap. Actually, the band was formed almost coincidentally. One day when I was doing a live performance in the city's Kozmo Lounge, Simin and Sakib, two of the initial members of Groovetrap showed up and they apparently loved the funk numbers I was performing during that time. Eventually, following a brief discussion after the show and a short jamming session, we decided to come up with our band 'Groovetrap.'

At Groovetrap we experimented with all types of music, starting from funk, jazz to rock, soul and pop. Unfortunately the band went into hibernation in 2010 when some of its members moved abroad. The disintegration of the band took quite a big toll on me and I decided to stay away from music for a while. However, that had not been entirely possible for me and I performed as a vocal in different piano driven shows by the famous pianist Romel Ali, from time to time.

Currently, I am planning on releasing a solo album sometime in future. To all the youngsters out there, my message would be, always try to move on with your life but never forget the past completely!