Podcast #21 Jasmin Albash

Her fav Café in Basel : Avant-Gouz
Her fav coffee : Café Crème (with milk instead of cream)

Jasmin is a singer, vocal coach and composer from Altnau, Kanton Thurgau. Her base is BASEL.

She has been teaching for 10 years now based on CVT (Complete Vocal Technique) and her Jazz & Pop studies. Her school is called SING OUT LOUD! where she has one on one lessons and gives workshops.

But that’s only one of the 4 projects she has!

She is also a singer and has 2 bands:

Jasmin Albash (previously The RK)
Kallemi that started as an exchange project by Kaserne Basel.

And in October last year, she also started her Youtube channel: Sijada Sessions where she collaborates for 1 song with Female Artists on the ‘Sijada’ (‘carpet’ in arabic). She’s had artists such as: La Nefera, Jennifer Jans (Bleu Roi), Annie Goodchild, Legion Seven and Joana Aderi (Sissy Fox).

And one more thing: she is part of Helvetiarockt an organisation to empower female artists!

How it all started:

Jasmin used to be a primary school teacher. But as the job didn’t fulfill her and music was always calling, she started studying music in Winterthur. Jazz and Pop studies and later on Complete Vocal Technique CVT in Copenhagen. She was working 50 % and was studying music 50%, it was tricky, she always felt like she didn’t have enough time for music! But she managed and very quickly started teaching her passion in her bedroom! And later got a little studio where she started with the Christmas Singing, an annual concert with her choirs and students (still happening now). That was 10 years ago!

She always did music as a kid and teenager, she was always involved in bands, etc. but choosing singing as a profession was first not accepted from her Palestinian Dad’s perspective and that’s why she studied Primary school teaching first (listen to the whole story).

After her music studies she started to really find her voice and style, from jazz back to electronic music that was always one of her biggest love. Jasmin works a lot with her loopstation and synthesizers and recently entered into the world of producing.

It’s a process to BE AN ARTIST = a whole world that you create. Being an artist means being challenged all the time. There is always something you never did before or something you gotta deal with like the success that’s not coming the way you’d wish or people you work with and don’t work with anymore. Constantly reassessing what works and what doesn’t. The older I get, the happier I get cause I really do what I want. And I feel like I have something to tell now!

She worked on herself a lot in that process and keeps working on herself.

In 2018, she went to Palestine for the first time with the Kallemi project. After having connected to her roots again, she composed a new album that’s coming out in September this year. She feels like her Swiss side and her Arabic side made peace.

‘I raise my voice for you’ was the first song she wrote on this topic and it is a song dedicated to her Grand- Parents.

More on the album and what else is happening this year below.

Her Creative Process:

Meditation are moments of inspiration. Sometimes she has ‘movies’ or strong images coming to mind and then she can write inspired by them.

She sometimes works with the instruments first and writes the lyrics later.

Her Self-Care practices:

Massages, Meditation, hanging out with friends, hitting the Gym.

What is work for you?

Work is all her projects, it’s hard for her to stop working, take a break, but she is really dedicated to the music.

There are tasks that make her happy and others less happy but when she has time, even admin work is fine! She is the happiest when she makes music.

When she is doing music she opens a channel but it’s sometimes hard to get to that state with all the things on the TO-DO list > gotta prioritize!

What did you learn on your journey to entrepreneurship?

‘Just to do it and be strong!’

‘Even when you doubt yourself, just do it and be strong, believe in yourself, take care of yourself, don’t stay with people nor situations that are not good for you, there will be better ones, I promise!’

‘It is a process!’

‘Take little steps without thinking too much on the end goal!’

‘When I get stage fright, I just breathe and go for it!’

Sometimes when she focuses too much on all the things she still wants to achieve to feel successful, she can feel very unhappy but then when she focuses on all the things that she already did, she feels proud!

What’s happening this year?

Her new album is coming out in September and her first single is coming out March 13th!

The release show will be in October at Kaserne!

Sijada sessions is happening every month on Youtube!

Kallemi will be in South Korea, London and France!

She keeps on giving singing classes in her school SING OUT LOUD!