Biography

At a very young age, Steven took djembe lessons with the Senegalese percussionist Aly Ndiaye Rose. Soon he began expanding to other percussive instruments, including sabar, congas, bongos, timbales, timbal and others. He worked on his skills as a musician not only by taking many different classes, but also by traveling to countries with different musical styles, including Senegal, Guinea, Curacao, Maroc, Turkey, Cuba, Colombia and Brazil. This broadened Steven’s musical passion from African percussion to include Brazilian, Jazz and Latin music.

Currently, Steven is recording and touring with the band KOFFIE, but for the past years he has also performed with bands / artists like Banda Magda (USA), Ghost Note (USA), Bokante (USA), The Re:Freshed Orchestra (NL), Gallowstreet (NL), The Bill Laurance Group (UK), Fatoumata Diawara (Mali), Rodolfo Peruchin (Cuba), Osain del Monte (Cuba), Philip Lassiter (USA) and Grammy Award winning band Snarky Puppy (USA). Steven can be heard on the Snarky Puppy album ‘We like it here’ for which he recorded as a guest musician in Kytemans studio. This work with Snarky Puppy led to broad recognition, while the KOFFIE album Huntu gave way to performances at many music festivals, bringing Steven’s percussion sounds to a wider audience. Jazzism described Huntu as outstanding album.

These projects and collaborations made Steven into theversatile percussionist he is today. Steven values innovationand tries to mix different styles and rhythms throughout all his musical endeavors. In february 2019, Steven performed in Brasil – as the first and only Dutch artist –  at the legendary ‘Salvador da Bahia’. For seven days long he played together with the Brazilian artists Saulo, Denny Denan, Psirico and JAU the streets of Salvador.

At the moment

Steven is recording his own music. Steven released a Brazilian single ‘Gringo Barril’. And he releasedhis first fusion album which was recorded in Kytopia Utrecht. It is a mix of Afrobeat and Funk. He released 2 salsa singles ‘Esta Es Mi Rumba’ and ‘My Teachers’. Steven will release his salsa album ‘World Traveler’ August 2022 in New York. He signed a contract with New York label ‘Circle 9 Records’ from the Grammy winning trombonist / producer Doug Beavers.

Steven is releasing his Salsa album ‘World Traveler’ this year and after that his samba EP.

In September 2022 Steven will start as a percussion teacher at the Conservatory of Amsterdam (CvA). He will mainly teach Brazilian, Latin, African and all-round percussion. It’s part of the Global Groove Programme.

 

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