Sonic Sundays | Alsarah and the Nubatones

The Brooklyn-based outfit Alsarah and the Nubatones is a band headed by Alsarah, who was born in Sudan but moved with her parents to Yemen, and then to Massachusetts by age 12. Northern Sudan, where she is from, is historically the region of Nubia, which has its own unique musical traditions. With her band, she has created the genre of “East African retro-pop,” “retro” because it’s a little nostalgic and draws from traditional music as inspiration, but is undeniably modern.

The other members of the band are Alsarah’s sister Nahid singing backup vocals, Mawuena Kodjovi on bass and trumpet, Rami el Aasser on percussion, and Brian Terzig playing the oud, a lute-like stringed instrument used in Middle Eastern, North African, and Central Asian music.

The region of Nubia consists of roughly the area between Aswan, Egypt in the north and nearly to Khartoum, Sudan in the south. Around 50,000 Nubians were displaced and forced to resettle due to the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt in the 1960s, which flooded their homeland. Many of Alsarah and the Nubatones’ songs are about homesickness and longing, in the “songs of return” style of Nubian music, but Alsarah says that “music has always been [her] way of going home.” Alsarah and the Nubatones performed in Seattle, at the theater where I worked, just days after Sudan’s former dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted in a coup d’état in 2019. Currently, Sudan is governed by a transitional government, with the promise of a democratic government in 2022.

“Ya Watan” is about the pain and heartbreak that comes from leaving one’s country. This music video, in which Alsarah and Nahid walk across a landscape under a starry sky, was directed by Maryam Parwana. “Habibi Safr Mini” is an example of aghani albanat music, which means “girls’ music,” and deals almost exclusively with women’s issues and experiences.

In this version, Alsarah and Nahid sing together a capella, and their album version, on Silt, is titled “Jibal Alnuba.” “Habibi Taal” is a wedding song, which Alsarah and the Nubatones cover in their signature retro-pop sound. “Salam Nubia” is the opening track of their second album, Manara, which means “lighthouse.” This song is about the happiness one feels when coming home.

“Ya Watan” (“Oh Homeland”)

”Habibi Safr Mini”

“Habibi Taal”

”Salam Nubia”