Here’s an odd story that starts off with this crazy YouTube Video.

It’s three women in blue burkas who started their own band.

Freelance journalist Michael Lund has more:

In Afghanistan girls aren’t supposed to play music or sing songs. But 25-year-old Nargiz didn’t care. She started the Burka Band, the first Afghan girl band ever.

Blueee, burka blue, sings the lead singer on the tv, while another woman plays the drums and a third the guitar.

25-year-old Nargiz laughs when she shows us the video in Kabul , the capital of Afghanistan . She is one of the three girls who started the Burka Band two years ago.

“It was a lot of fun, but also very scary. Afghanistan is still a very dangerous place for modern women, and when we shot the video we had to do it very discreetely because no one could know that we were playing music”, says Nargiz.

Nargiz started the Burka Band when she met a German music producer in Kabul in late 2002. The producer was teaching Afghans to play modern music, and Nargiz learned to play the drums. One day she wondered why all the burkas in Kabul were blue, and together with two friends she wrote the song “Burka Blue” which is about burkas and the way you feel when you wear them. The song was recorded in Kabul with help from the German producers. The band would rehearse behind locked doors, so nobody would find out that the women were playing music. The burka also helped hide who the bandmembers really were.

- Of course it was a joke to sing in the burkas, but it was also necessary to wear them. If people in Afghanistan knew who the members of the Burka Band were, we could be attacked or killed because there are still a lot of religious fanatics here, says Nargiz, who hasn’t told any of her friends that she has played in the Burka Band.

In 2003 the German record label Ata Tak released the song in Germany and the song became a hit in German clubs after it had been remixed by a german DJ. The Burka Band even performed at a big concert in Köln during a trip to Germany . Unfortunately, Nargiz couldn’t join the band in Köln because she had to work, but she followed all the hype from her home in Kabul .

Sample Lyrics: My mother wears a burka, I must wear a burka too. We all wear a burka, we don’t know who is who. Blueee, burka blue.

(Nargiz’s name has been changed to secure her anonymity.)

Here’s the embedded version of the video (introduced by some German Guy)

One person referred to the band as “IslamoPrimus“. I can kinda see it.

Here is their official web site.

~Bill G