Wise Men (Christmas) -- Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Abaih

 From his book, Khartoon.

Some Arab Officials (Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Abaih)

From his book, Khartoon.

Season's Greetings from the CIA Torture Department (Sudanese Cartoonist Khalid Abaih)

This is from Abaih's book Khartoon! Not sure where you can get it, but you can follow this terrific cartoonist on Facebook, here.

Songs of the Sudanese Uprising: Surrender the Keys to the Country -- Muhammad Wardi, Zoozita

On March 3, NPR's Eyder Peralta reported on the song that is the anthem of the protesters in the current struggle in Sudan, aimed at taking down the regime of Omar Bashir.

The song was recorded by Sudanese singer Zoozita, who is based in the UAE, in January. Here's the video.

The song was composed by the late great Sudanese Nubian singer and composer, Muhammad Wardi. According to Peralta, it was composed in 1997, to perform at the Hague. It just so happens that I saw Wardi perform it on June 14, 1997, at a banquet at the Cairo Hilton, for the Sudan Studies Association banquet. Wardi only performed two songs, the first one about Sudanese living in exile, the second, "Sallim Mufatih al-Balad." I'm not sure exactly why he was only allowed to perform two songs, but my friends suggested that it was due to political sensitivities.

I loved the song at the time but never was able to find it for sale in Cairo. I'm so thrilled to come across it again. Wardi, who passed away in 2012, never recorded it, apparently, but you can find live recordings on YouTube, such as this one.

Here are the lyrics in Arabic, and maybe someday someone will come up with a good translation.

عليك الزحف متقدم
وليك الشعب متحزم ومتلملم
يقول سلم
سلم ومابتسلم
رحمت متين عشان ترحم؟
سلم مفاتيح البلد
سلم عباياتنا وملافحنا
مصاحفنا ومسابحنا
جوامعنا وكنايسنا
سلم مفاتيح البلد

تراث أجدادنا سلمنا
عقول أولادنا سلمنا
بنادقنا البتضربنا
الموجهة لي صدورنا
وبرضو حقتنا
سلمنا
سلم مفاتيح البلد

سلمنا الزمان الضاع
ليل الغربة والأوجاع
أحزانا العشناها
مع الوطن العزيز الجاع
سلم مفاتيح البلد

حتهرب وين من الألم الكبير والجوع
من تعليمك المدفوع
ومن شعبا سقاك لبنو سقيتو من الهوان والجوع
يا ساقي سمك المنبوع
سلم مفاتيح البلد

حتهرب وين من الذكرى وعذاباتها
ومن لبن الأمومة ومن حساب الرب
حتهرب وين وانت ايدينك الإتنين ملوثة دم
فصيح الدم ينضم وبتكلم يقول سلم
سلم مفاتيح البلد

I had the chance to meet Wardi in Cairo the following summer, and hope to blog about that meeting in future.

The best report on the current uprising in Sudan was Khalid Madani's February 23 article in Jadaliyya, "Tasqut Bas (Fall, That is All)."

Shadia, Sudanese style

The divine Shadia, who passed away in November 2017, performs a song composed by Munir Mourad (Leila's brother), "Ya Habibi Oud Li Tani," in Omdurman, Sudan, sometime during the 1960s. The original recording was done in distinctly Sudanese style, it's not just for this performance, and of course the Sudanese audience receives it warmly. I'm sorry about the quality of the video, it's not great, but the song really is. I don't know of other examples of well-known Egyptian singers of the period performing in Sudanese mode, but perhaps there are some. Please let me know! And thanks to Rania for the tip.

Sudanese mixtape

Terrific ten track mix of Sudanese music from back in the day, with Abdelkarim Al-Kabli, Al Bilabil, Sayed Khalifa and Khogali Osman, who was murdered by an Islamist assassin in 1994, and others. Courtesy Aquarium Drunkard. Grab it now.

Calypso in Farid El Atrash's film, Mā Ta’ūlsh le Ḥad (1952)

I've been reading Margaret Farrell's excellent dissertation ("Aspects of Adaptation in the Egyptian Singing Film", CUNY 2012) and learned this: the operetta " Mā Ta’ūlsh le Ḥad" which concludes the film of the same name (1952) runs consecutively through these styles: Modern Egyptian, Tango, Waltz, Calypso, Arabic traditional, Egyptian traditional, Egyptian samba. I was familiar with Egyptian music adapting all these styles but it was "Calypso" that really stuck out. Fuller doesn't discuss this segment, so I checked out the clip on YouTube. It's amazing. The calypso segment (yes, with calypso beat, starting at 5:19) features a Sudanese singer (I don't know who it is), black dancers, and Samia Gamal dancing in (subdued) blackface. Farid El Atrash joins in the calypso song at the end. Check out the entire operetta, it's great. Samia Gamal dances throughout, she's the best, and the woman singing in the operetta is Nur al-Huda.

A side note on calypso, courtesy Billy Bragg's new book, Roots, Radicals, and Rockers. The mass migration of West Indians to the UK was launched with the arrival on June 21, 1948 of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in Essex. On the boat were two of calypso's finest singers, Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener. Lord Kitchener was filmed on deck singing his new composition, "London Is the Place for Me." Newsreel footage was shown around Britain and calypso was presented as the music of the new immigrant community. One of the earliest calypso recordings to be released in the UK was Lord Beginner's "Victory Test Match Calypso" (1950) in celebration of the West Indian cricket team's first victory over England. 

It is said that the world craze for calypso was launched in 1956, with the success of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." So Egypt -- or maybe it was Sudan -- was ahead of the cultural curve.

Recommended: The Lost 45s of Sudan from Shellachead

One of the best reissuers out there, Shellachead, put out a wonderful collection of Sudanese music last month, all 45s recorded on Sudan's Munisphone label in the sixties and seventies. I was only familiar with two of the artists previously, the fabulous female trio al-Bilabil (read about them here) and Sayed Khalifa, who is most well-known in Egypt, at least, for his song "Mambo Soudani," which he performs in the 1957 film Tamr Hinna.

And here is a bit of info about Khalifa, courtesy Heather Maxwell of the VOA:

More than any other singer of his generation, Sayed Khalifa, is responsible for the popularity of ‘Omdurman songs’ throughout the Muslim Sahel and the Horn of Africa. A dynamic performer, Khalifa won fans throughout Africa with his reinterpretations of classic Sudanese songs in the national languages of his African audiences. He was born in 1928 in the village of Ad Dibeiba, not far from Khartoum, and in 1947 received a scholarship to study at the Arab Music Institute in Cairo. He made his first radio broadcasts, on Egyptian radio, during these student years, and in 1956 wrote his name into Sudanese history with his recording of ‘Ya Watani’ a patriotic song praising Sudanese independence. Like many of his musical peers, Sayed Khalifa’s career was curtailed by the Islamic regimes of the late 1980s, with some of his more sensual songs purged from the Radio Omdurman archives. The great Sayed Khalifa passed away on July 2, 2001 while undergoing treatment for heart disease.

His most famous song, and one of the Sudan’s most well travelled melodies, is ‘El Mambo Soudani’. The music was composed by Sayed Abdel Ray, and Sayed Khalifa himself composed the lyrics. This song has become a staple of Sudanese wedding bands, and was also the title of the 1998 Piranha records ‘El Mambo Soudani’ by the Cairo based group Salamat (Sayed Khalifa appears on the group’s 1998 CD ‘Ezzayakoum’). After encouraging his listeners to dance the Sudanese Mambo, Sayed Khalifa sings of his beloved, of her beauty and graceful silhouette, and of the suffering she puts him through.

But the other tracks on the collection are all worth listening to. You can listen to the entire collection here, via bandcamp, and you can download it for the very reasonable price of $5. (Plus you get the booklet that goes along with the music, as a pdf.) Highly recommended.

Recommended reading on "Waltz with Bashir" and the other (Sudanese) Bashir

From Middle East Report Online, Ursala Lindsey's review of Waltz with Bashir ("Shooting Film and Crying").

There is a final irony. Waltz with Bashir holds a redemptive message, celebrating the necessity and the ability to confront one’s past. Yet the film and its reception exemplify the strictly enforced boundaries of any debate on Israel’s past and present transgressions.

Also from Middle East Report Online, Khalid Mustafa Medani's analysis of the ICC's indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

By Bashir’s calculation, the ICC decision is not the end of the road. His primary objective is to consolidate the junta’s power by expanding oil production in Darfur and elsewhere. Only a genuinely democratic transition stands in the way of this objective. The ICC’s warrant for Bashir’s arrest will have little effect in resolving the larger problem in Sudan: the lack of participatory politics. Only if this warrant is followed by a concerted effort to support free and fair elections will it fulfill its promise.

That (Sudanese) Target Ad

You've all seen it, that Target "dorm dance" ad, with what must be one of the best dance tracks and vocals ever in a mainstream advertisement. And you think, yes, every cool song, and especially now, the coolest world fusion tune, must, immediately and invevitably, be turned into a marketing tool.



(And if you are some nostalgist who imagines this never happened in the sixties, check out The Rolling Stones shilling for Rice Krispies, below.)



The song is "Calabria," by DJ Enur from Denmark, and features vocals by Natasja Saad, a Danish dancehall/reggae vocalist whose father, it turns out, is from Sudan. I can't claim there is anything remotely "Sudanese" about her singing, which is pure dancehall.

But she seems to be trying to look vaguely Sudanese in this photo, no?

On the other hand, here's Natasja in a more typical "dancehall" look.

Natasja was not just a star in Denmark, but also "the first non-Jamaican reggae/dancehall artist ever to win the Jamaican 'Irie FM Big Break Contest,'" according to wikipedia.

Here's the "official" video, in which Natasja appears. Pretty typical dancehall fare, I guess: one guy in a suit, ogling all the beautiful semi-dressed female bodies.



Natasja was killed in a car wreck in Jamaica in June 2007. "Calabria" was already a global hit by that time; in January 2008, it hit Number One on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay.

And for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to Jamaican patois (as I certainly am), here are the lyrics you hear on the Target ad:

Easy now no need fi go down (2x)
Rock that run that this where we from

Whoop Whoop, when you run come around,
Cu(z) I know you're the talk of the town, yeah

Best shown overall, shiny and tall,
One touch make a gal climb whoever you are,
Brass hat, hatter than fireball
Whoop Whoop!
You not small you no lickle at all