Sankofa Fun Club's UNMute Radio with Ghasem Batamuntu

Ghasem Batamuntu was born in Oakland, California and raised as an adolescent is South Central Los Angles. It was in this neighborhood that he was influenced by the collective arts culture of LA during the late 50s and 60s. Attending Trinity college in Conneticut, Ghasem was affordable a great musical experience that would further his development. He was among the 1^st students to pass through the Jackie Mclean Performance Arts Center.

Returning back to LA, he joined the Community Art’s Movement with other prominent musicians like Arthor Blyth, Sonship Theus, David Murray and Rasual Saddik. Eventually moving back to Oakland, he formed his own performance unit called “The Nova Ghost Sect Tet that featured many different artist. He also performed as a dancer for different Bay Area dance companies. The Nova Ghost Sect Tet began to incorporate dance, film, fine arts, poetry and other theatre arts. This led to teaching art, eventually gaining the title of Master Artist Educator through “The CA Arts Project” funded by the CA State Universities.

Ghasem moved to Amsterdam to further his musical quest and was introduced to the jazz community. Soon he organized his own ensembles and evolved his musical concepts in different bands. This led to video/film where Ghasem persued multimedia projects with different artist.

Currently, Ghasem has been performing as a saxophonist and poet with a Rotterdam based band called, The Mirror Conspiracy.