Scattered by war, the band that gave voice to Sudan's revolution plays again

Detailed summary

The Cairo studio where Sudanese musician Mohamed al-Mustafa strums his guitar is a long way away from the Khartoum protests where his band once performed for thousands demanding…

The Cairo studio where Sudanese musician Mohamed al-Mustafa strums his guitar is a long way away from the Khartoum protests where his band once performed for thousands demanding democracy, before war scattered them across multiple continents.

After living through revolution, war and years of displacement, Mustafa and his fellow musicians in "Aswat al-Madina" (Arabic for Voices of the City) have reunited in the Egyptian capital, returning to both recording and live performance.

"I still can't quite process the fact that we're back together," said Mustafa, the band's guitarist and co-founder, who goes by Timon.

"It still feels unreal," he told AFP between recording takes, as back home war rages between the two forces Sudan's youth once rallied against: the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

In the studio, old stories and songs transport the musicians back to Khartoum, where they became the soundtrack to Sudan's 2018 uprising against longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir.

Two days before war erupted between the army and the RSF, former allies who worked together to derail Sudan's transition to democracy, the band was debating setlists for their next performance.

Instead, they found themselves swept up in the conflict, which has since devastated Sudan, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing millions more.

Founded in Khartoum in 2014, Aswat al-Madina was part of a wave of underground bands pushing Sudanese music beyond conventional boundaries.

Blending folk traditions with jazz, reggae and contemporary rhythms, they sang about corruption, social injustice and life under authoritarian rule.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Al-Monitor. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.