News Detail

Kabul Dreams shows soft image of Afghanistan

By Farhad Naibkhel
KABUL: Kabul Dreams, a rock band of three youngsters, has succeeded in making history by introducing rock music into Afghanistan for the first time despite of uncertain law and order situation, while conquered hearts of many in short time.
Sulyman Qardash, the guitarist and vocalist of the group during exclusive interview with Afghanistan Times, said that establishing rock band with his two friends was aimed to introduce soft image of Afghanistan to the world.
“Media introduced Afghanistan to the world as warrior and undeveloped country and broadcasted or published only about negative points. Bright side of the picture was seldom highlighted by foreign media. Thus, the Kabul Dream as a rock band tried to present the brighter aspect as well as to tell foreigners about talent that Afghans got,” he said.
Sulyman told that despite of the fact that Afghans suffered much from more than thirty-year of conflicts, still they are energetic and had creative. The Kabul Dream is going to prove this.
All three members of the band were born in Afghanistan, and were forced to leave abroad in Taliban regime. After collapse of Taliban regime the band came back to home with songs of love and peace while having melodic background.
Sulyman Qardash with his family left for Russia in 1993. After short stay they went to Uzbekistan, where Sulyman finished music school and was in love with rock music. Bass guitarist, Siddique Ahmad, stayed in Pakistan while drummer Mujtaba Habibi in Iran.
Through friends, members of the group were introduced to each other, as they were living in different countries. They finally planned to establish Kabul Dreams rock band in order to materialize their dreams.�
Sulyman recalled that they started from a small studio and went through different stages for winning the hearts of audience.
The rock band has performed different concerts inside Afghanistan and in Turkey, Uzbekistan, India, Estonia and some other European countries. The band also performed as Afghanistan’s rock band in South Asia Band Festival, which was launched by South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in India.���
Rock music is common in America and most of the European countries. However, Afghans seldom heard this type of music, before it was introduced in 2008 by the trio. “We named the band as Kabul Dreams because we dreamed to establish a rock band in Kabul”, said the 22-year old vocalist.�
Nothing describes better the sorrows of Afghan youth than music. It is the music which motivates them. Hence, we want to encourage them through music and give them the message that Afghans could live together, he added.
First song of the band was “Can you fly?” to inspire the youth and motivate them.
It would be better to mentioned here that currently the rock band is working on a new album that would be released next year and would contain 12-13 songs. The Kabul Dreams established studio without asking others for help.
Mohammad Parwiz, a fan of the rock band, said the band is incredible and performed well so far. “I listen to different songs and music, but my favorite music is rock much as it infuses a kind of energy into me,” he said.
It’s worth mentioning here that Afghanistan has rich music history, particularly local music with traditional instruments such as tabla and rubab, but despite of this fact, the music was faced to several and severe problems during the three decades of violence and bloodshed. Taliban brought the music on the verge of collapse as in their regime no one was allowed to listen music.
They destroyed music studios and banned selling and purchasing of music cassette and instruments. After collapse of Taliban regime, the democratic government in Afghanistan proved blessing for musicians and singers, as evident from their return to homeland while having knowledge of modern music as well as of local. In today’s Afghanistan music can be divided into two groups: traditional and modern Afghan music, where both have its audiences and taking roots again in different part of the country.�

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