Kase.O

Spanish rapper Kase.O was born Javier Ibarra Ramos in Zaragoza on March 1st, 1980. Encouraged by his older brother, who was a part of hip-hop collective Gangsta Squad, he started rapping at a very young age and released his first demo in cassette format under the title Rompecabezas in 1993. Kase.O followed up with the LP Dos Rombos (1995), which quickly garnered the attention of the Spanish underground hip-hop scene with the track “Soy de Aragón.” That same year, he founded the rap crew Violadores del Verso alongside Lírico, Sho-Hai, and R de Rumba. With the group, he went on to release three critically acclaimed full-lengths and achieve both local and international fame. Violadores del Verso split up in 2009, after which Kase.O dropped the jazz rap album Jazz Magnetism in 2011. The LP was a novelty in many ways, mainly because it featured organic instrumentation by an actual jazz band that accompanied Kase.O while touring. Following the release of the maxi single Previo in 2015, he dropped El Círculo (2016), an album conceived during the MC’s stay in Colombia that featured guest spots by Xhelazz, Shabu One, Hermano L, Najwa, and part of the Violadores del Verso crew. The full-length obtained gold certification a month after its release. It also spawned a collection of remixes and a live album, both released in 2019. In 2020, Kase.O returned with the maxi single Divertimentos (Vol. 1), featuring guest spots by Harto and Escandaloso Xpósito. A second volume saw the light of day in 2021 and included the track “Ringui Dingui” with SFDK, which reached Number 68 on the Spanish charts.