\nThere is an unusual symmetry to Sepultura’s return to Morocco.
When the Brazilian band walked onto the L’Boulevard stage on 16 May 2010, they were performing in the country for the first time. When they return sixteen years later, they will be saying goodbye to an entire continent.
Sepultura have announced their 19 September 2026 appearance at L’Boulevard as their final African show, placing Casablanca inside the closing stretch of the Celebrating Life Through Death farewell tour.
For a festival whose history is closely tied to Morocco’s alternative and independent music scenes, the booking carries more weight than the arrival of another major international name.
L’Boulevard has seen this story before — at its beginning.
Casablanca, 2010: Sepultura’s first night in Morocco
Sepultura headlined the closing night of L’Boulevard’s 11th edition on 16 May 2010 at Stade du C.O.C.
It was the band’s first performance in Morocco.
The rock and metal programme was held under the slogan “Do Rock not Bombs”, in an edition that coincided with the anniversary of the 16 May 2003 Casablanca bombings. The idea reflected something central to L’Boulevard’s identity: live music and urban culture were not treated simply as entertainment, but as ways for young audiences to occupy public space, form communities and build alternative cultural narratives.
Moroccan coverage at the time described an exceptionally intense closing night, while international metal media also documented the significance of Sepultura’s Moroccan debut.
The line-up that evening featured Derrick Green on vocals, Andreas Kisser on guitar, Paulo Jr. on bass and Jean Dolabella on drums.
Sixteen years later, the first Moroccan chapter and the final African chapter of Sepultura’s live history are set to meet at the same festival.
The Brazilian band that changed metal’s geography
Sepultura’s importance is difficult to explain through record sales or longevity alone.
Formed in Belo Horizonte in 1984 by brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, the band emerged from a Brazilian underground scene operating far from the traditional centres of the international heavy-metal industry.
The early records were raw and extreme. By the end of the decade, however, Beneath the Remains in 1989 and Arise in 1991 had pushed Sepultura into the international front line of thrash metal.
Then the vocabulary began to change.
Chaos A.D. in 1993 slowed and widened parts of the band’s sound, bringing groove, hardcore and Brazilian rhythmic ideas further into the music. Roots, released in 1996, went deeper still, incorporating extensive percussion and a musical encounter with members of Brazil’s Indigenous Xavante people.
That evolution mattered.
Sepultura were no longer simply a Brazilian group proving they could compete within an established European and North American metal language. They were allowing the sound, rhythms and cultural references of Brazil to reshape that language.
Songs such as “Arise,” “Refuse/Resist,” “Territory,” “Ratamahatta” and “Roots Bloody Roots” would become global metal staples.
Nearly three decades beyond the Cavalera split
The departure of Max Cavalera in 1996 remains the most famous rupture in Sepultura’s history. American vocalist Derrick Green joined the following year and made his recording debut with the band on Against in 1998.
What followed was not a short postscript.
Green’s tenure now accounts for almost three decades of Sepultura’s story, spanning records including Nation, Dante XXI, A-Lex, Kairos, Machine Messiah and 2020’s Quadra.
The line-up heading to Casablanca is Derrick Green on vocals, Andreas Kisser on guitar, Paulo Jr. on bass and Greyson Nekrutman on drums. Nekrutman joined in 2024 as the farewell period began.
That matters when considering what this tour represents. Sepultura are not presenting a recreation of a single “classic” era. The farewell has increasingly been framed as a journey through the band’s different identities, line-ups and musical phases.
A farewell built as a celebration
Sepultura announced the decision to end the band on 1 December 2023.
Rather than disappear after a handful of goodbye concerts, they launched the Celebrating Life Through Death world tour, conceived as a long-form farewell to the audiences that had sustained the group across decades and continents.
The tour ultimately extended into 2026, while the band continued to release new material even during its final chapter.
Recent performances show how the farewell is being built. Sepultura move between different periods of the catalogue, with songs such as Territory, Refuse/Resist, Arise, Ratamahatta and Roots Bloody Roots continuing to anchor the closing stretch of many shows.
No Casablanca setlist has been announced, so those songs should not be read as a confirmed programme for L’Boulevard. They do, however, reveal the logic of the current show: a career-spanning farewell rather than a nostalgia set focused on one decade.
Casablanca before the final night in São Paulo
The timing makes the Moroccan date particularly significant.
After Casablanca, Sepultura will continue through Latin America. Their final-ever concert is scheduled for 7 November 2026 in São Paulo, at the Mercado Livre Arena Pacaembu.
Less than two months separate L’Boulevard from the end.
For fans who were at Stade du C.O.C in 2010, the September concert will carry the weight of a return. For younger Moroccan listeners who have never had the opportunity to see Sepultura live, it may be a first encounter — and, if the band’s farewell proceeds as announced, the last opportunity to see them perform in Africa.
Why L’Boulevard is the right place for the circle to close
There is another reason this return feels coherent.
Since its creation in 1999, L’Boulevard has built its identity around the meeting point between emerging Moroccan musicians, established local scenes and international artists whose work has shaped the genres represented at the festival.
Its 24th edition runs from 17 to 20 September 2026 at Stade du R.U.C in Casablanca, with free admission and a programme spanning rap and hip-hop, rock and metal, fusion and other contemporary forms.
The festival’s Tremplin continues to put new Moroccan projects in front of audiences and music professionals. Sepultura, meanwhile, arrive carrying more than four decades of live history.
Those two scales — emergence and legacy — will occupy the same festival.
That may ultimately be what makes the Casablanca show culturally significant. Not only that one of metal’s most influential Brazilian bands is coming back, but that its farewell will take place inside a festival built around the idea that music passes from one generation to another.
In 2010, one generation of Moroccan fans welcomed Sepultura for the first time.
In 2026, another will be there for the African goodbye.
Practical information
Sepultura at L’Boulevard 2026 Date: Saturday, 19 September 2026 Venue: Stade du R.U.C — Casablanca Festival: L’Boulevard 24th edition, 17–20 September 2026 Admission: Free Sepultura stage time: To be announced