Behind The Sounds of Sudan: Preserving and Celebrating Our Musical History

A few months ago, my family and I sat in the living room and listening to one of our favourite songs, “Ashofak Bokra Fi Al Maweid” by Sudanese singer Muhammed Al Ameen. As Al Ameen delivered his usual dynamic performance, my father sat amongst us, discussing the cultural significance of Al Ameen and reminiscing about the days where his songs used to burst through radios across Sudan. As the video was ending, I scrolled through the suggestions and a catchy thumbnail caught my eye. It was titled “The Epic of October”, I was familiar with the song, but I had only known the title in Arabic. I was intrigued to see why it was written in English and as I clicked on the video, I was introduced to Hatim Eujayl’s musical channel, The Sounds of Sudan. 

My family and I were intrigued, and we went through the songs on the channel, finding new meaning to the songs we had heard all through our childhood. We were pleasantly surprised by the new understanding that fell upon us. It was such a rare occurrence for me to listen to a Sudanese song and understand the content fully. I became even more interested by the person who ran the channel with such diligence and effort, which led me to contact Hatim Eujayl in order to learn more about his experience managing The Sounds of Sudan. 

Hatim Eujayl is a 20-year old Sudanese-American student of English education and the force behind The Sounds of Sudan channel, which currently boasts more than 21 lyrical videos of Sudan’s greatest music legends. It features prominent Sudanese artists and musicians such as Muhammed Al Ameen, Muhammed Wardi, Al Balabil, and Sayed Khalifa. The videos contain high-quality recordings of some of the most iconic Sudanese musical pieces in history, with proper historical context and English translations. Once I got into touch with Eujayl, I asked him a set of questions about the technicalities, content, and cultural significance of the channel. 

What was your motivation behind starting The Sounds of Sudan YouTube channel?

I wanted to help other members of the Sudanese diaspora (and, to a lesser extent, non-Sudanese) recognise Sudan as a producer of art. A struggle I faced as a Sudanese person growing up in America was this feeling that Sudan didn’t really have a strong artistic culture: as far as I knew, Sudan wasn’t making great cinema, great books, or great music, and this ignorance of mine bred something of an inferiority complex. I think it’s a very natural desire to want to see yourself represented in the art you consume. I think, subconsciously, to fix this issue, I ended up becoming a very passionate Pan-Arabist in my high school years: I used the Arab aspect of my identity as an opportunity to claim Arab culture and history. This process led me to listening to artists like Umm Kulthum and Cheb Khaled, and discovering MohCoolMan’s channel on YouTube, where he would translate classic Arabic songs.

It’s just that there was one thing missing: while the people in these songs I listened to share a language with Sudan, they weren’t Sudanese. So, one day in my senior year of high school, I decided to go to the biggest Sudanese music fan I knew: my mother. I asked her, ‘Who would be Sudan’s Umm Kulthum?’ She told me, ‘Muhammad Al Ameen’. I listened to “Bedur Al Qal’a” and I fell in love. I’ve always heard Sudanese music around the house because my mom played it, but that was the first time I really listened to it. This pushed me to ask more about classic Sudanese singers, and thanks to the Arabic skills I developed during my Pan-Arabist phase, I came to realise something: Sudan has a rich, beautiful musical culture. I just wasn’t encountering it because it’s really hard to access those things in English. When I realised this, I thought, ‘There must be so many other Sudanese-Americans who are missing out on the artistic achievements of their culture because their Arabic is imperfect or non-existent’. So, inspired by MohCoolMan, I chose to make the channel.

How do you find access to the high-quality auto files of the songs you select?

There’s no singular and distinct process,. It’s really just about patience. Sudanese music isn’t really well-archived. The closest thing, I would say, to a library of high-quality recordings of Sudanese songs is El-Rashied Zakaria’s YouTube channel. Anyways, what this means is that you’ll find high quality recordings of songs in some pretty unlikely places. Sketchy internet websites, mislabelled videos on YouTube or SoundCloud. You have to be really creative with your search terms. Sometimes, when the occasion calls for it, I do some pretty rudimentary audio editing to clean up a recording. I did that with “Beautiful People”. But unfortunately, for some songs, high quality recordings just don’t exist. Sometimes, the archiving function of the channel is more important than audio quality – a principle we adhered to when releasing the “From the Radio Station” translation. 

Do you do the translation and graphics on your own? How difficult has it been to undertake that solely?  

I handle all the visuals myself. I used to do the translation myself, but now Sarah Elderderi collaborates with me on translations. Of course, from the time the channel started, I always consulted relatives, especially my mother, when it came to translations and I still do. But even with the help, translating Sudanese music is really complex. Early on, I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never be able to reproduce the poetry of the original. So, I re-centred my goals on making comprehensible and educational translations, but even then, there are still a lot of challenges. Sudanese music often contains metaphors that just don’t make sense in English, and sometimes there are phrases in Sudanese music that don’t even have a really clear meaning in Arabic. Furthermore, to my knowledge, there aren’t online dictionaries available for Sudanese Arabic, which is why consulting my relatives is so important.

In regards to visuals, that’s honestly the easiest part of the channel. It’s a bit tedious, but the only real challenge there is my own perfectionist tendencies. You can see the channel’s visual style has changed a lot. I just wasn’t satisfied with the way the videos looked and only recently do I feel like I’ve settled on a style that really works, but even then, I still have some issues with it. I still want to try to make a channel that’s not only educational, but also appears professional and aesthetically pleasing. 

How do you go about choosing the song you wish to translate/upload on your channel? Do you have a preference towards genres or musicians? 

Up until about April 2020, there was no real process other than ‘I like this song, and it’s really famous, I want to translate it’. Occasionally, I would translate based on what was going on in Sudan, i.e. translating “The Epic of October” on 21 October, or “Hand Over the Keys to the Country” when the TMC-FFC deal was signed in August 2019. After I actually made a small team for The Sounds of Sudan towards the end of April 2020, we decided to do one artist per month, and so far I think that model is working really well. The debate basically boils down to “is this person famous and are they influential?” As far as biases towards certain genres, it’s no secret that I prefer “Golden Age” of Sudanese music, which was around about 70s-90s, in my opinion. That type of music also works well for the channel because it’s more multigenerational than other forms, because, people like Wardi and Al Balabil cut across generations. As far as musicians, Wardi is my favourite, and as a result, he gets a little overrepresented on the channel, which I do regret, and I’m trying to move away from. 

What has been some of your most favourite songs that you have put on the channel, and why?

 I interpreted this question in two ways:

As songs, “The Lemon of Baara,” “In Dreams or In Waking,” “The Messenger,” “The Migrating Bird,” and “The Noble Sadness.” “The Lemon of Baara” just has such a unique and irresistible sound. With “The Lemon of Baara”, Abdelgadir Saalim basically takes a traditional Kordofani folk song and turns it into a sonically experimental and unforgettable track, I just love it. “In Dreams or in Waking” is the perfect Sudanese love song, I love the poetry of its lyrics, I love the oud, and I’m a huge Al Balabil fan, and I think the performance I translated is excellent, emotional and catchy. “The Messenger” is just a wonderful narrative piece, easily one of Wardi’s best: the perspective change isn’t something we see a lot in Sudanese music, and the story as a whole is very effective. “The Migrating Bird”  is my second favorite song: it’s long, but it features what is one of Wardi’s greatest compositions. The allegory at the center of the song is brilliant, and powerful. The plot twist at the end, where it’s revealed that the bird – in addition to being a metaphor for the diaspora – is a messenger for the member of the diaspora. That’s brilliant. It also features one of Wardi’s best vocal performances. “The Noble Sadness” is just pure poetry, from start to finish, I wish I’d translated it with the skills I have now (and the help of the team) instead of then, I really don’t think I did the song’s depth justice. 

As translations, “The Messenger,” “The Migrating Bird” and “My Heart is Racing.” “The Messenger” gave us quite a bit of trouble. Actually, I didn’t fully understand the song until I committed myself to translating it, and I was surprised by the complexity of the narrative. Furthermore, the song has some vagueness in it that doesn’t really translate well into English. It also has quite a few characters. Making sure viewers can keep track of the perspective was quite a challenge. “The Migrating Bird” is a song I’ve been wanting to translate since I first listened to it, which is around when I’d started the channel. It was my favourite song at the time, so I shied away, wanting to wait until I felt my translation skills were ready for it. Luckily, the translation itself was unchallenging. Overall, I think that, even though we didn’t match the poetry of the original, we still did it justice. “My Heart is Racing” was fun to translate because, as a song, it’s just so fun. Sayed Khalifa’s performance is fun, the lyrics are both melodramatic and comedic, the story at the center of it is clear, traditional, but still enjoyable for the way it’s told. 

Why do you think it’s important to translate these Sudanese songs into English? 

Like I said earlier, I think a lot of the Sudanese diaspora is just missing out. If the language barrier wasn’t there, I think a lot of these people would be more open to exploring Sudanese music. There is also diaspora, who did grow up listening to these songs, but never had someone sit down and explain to them what the song meant. Overall, I hope translating these songs can provide a gateway to greater appreciation for Sudanese culture. For the non-Sudanese, who watch the channel, The Sounds of Sudan should serve as proof that Sudan is not just its politics, it is a country with a vibrant culture and a rich artistic tradition. 

In your opinion, what is the benefit of archiving Sudanese musical classics and how does this influence our cultural and traditional understanding? 

In general, Sudan has a huge issue of historical preservation and historical amnesia. Perhaps, I’m being a bit alarmist, but I think we are at risk of having these classics forgotten. Both at home and in the diaspora, I think it’s no secret that a huge portion of the younger generation of Sudanese just don’t listen to Sudanese music, especially not older songs like the ones we translate. I think that these people often haven’t been provided the tools to explore Sudan’s musical history, and that its important the younger generation should be exposed to Sudanese music that is meaningful and complex. They should be given a chance to see what Sudanese people are capable of as singers, composers and lyricists. The Sudanese youth need to see that we can have an art that doesn’t have to be blind mimicry of foreign traditions.

People should understand that Sudan’s unique musical voice is versatile, and The Sounds of Sudan puts that versatility and diversity on display. A proper archive can create a sense of pride, give people an opportunity to reflect, or even inspire people. This archive doesn’t just preserve Sudanese music, it often celebrates it. That’s why I love working on it. There’s this overwhelmingly positive energy that I think The Sounds of Sudan often brings, where people can sit and celebrate Sudan’s heritage. People get an accurate picture of who we were, and I think that will play a huge part into who we end up choosing to be. The music, after all, is something of a time capsule, capturing mindsets and traditions, some of which have endured, some of which have faded away. Of course, I don’t expect the channel itself to spawn a larger cultural movement, but it represents a step towards what I think is a necessary goal of greater historical and cultural preservation in Sudan.

The Sounds of Sudan is a piece of a cultural movement, and Hatim Eujayl’s dedication to the channel is a testament to his belief in the importance of cultural and historical preservation. Sudan’s musical history is unique, in that it has always been characterised and shaped by the traditions, politics, and culture of the time period. Thus, the music of various decades such as the 60s, 70s, and 80s, become a reflection of the sentiments, politics, and youthful enthusiasms that swept the nation. And as a result, the study and archiving of Sudanese music proves valuable, as it becomes as a historical capsule for the past generations whom we often discover were not too different from our own. 

The Sounds of Sudan can be found on Youtube: The Sounds of Sudan, on Twitter: @soundsofsudan, and Instagram: @thesoundsofsudan. Hatim Eujayl can be found on Twitter: @HatimAlTai2.