Sulaf – Naada
Sulaf is a Sudanese singer, oud player, and composer who left Sudan for France in 2022, intending a short creative stay at the Citรฉ Internationale des Arts in Paris. She didn’t go back. “I was not planning to stay, so I was not prepared for this exile”, she says. “Naada” is the first single from her debut album ABA, due October 9th via Real World Records.
The album was made with French producer and instrumentalist Maxime Kosinetz, whose credits include Imarhan and Tinariwen. ABA is dedicated to Sulaf’s great-grandfather, Abdelazim Sayed Ahmed, a Sufi poet and musician whose verses appear throughout the record. The songs are drawn from his writing, which Sulaf describes as lifelines during exile: music that “softened the grip” of distance and reminded her of where she came from. His entire output lived in a single notebook in Khartoum; she doesn’t know if it survived the conflict there.
“Naada” opens on oud, synths moving in around it as the tempo shifts underneath. The Nubian roots are present in the rhythmic structure without being ornamental: this is music that knows exactly where it comes from and isn’t interested in explaining itself. Sulaf has already appeared as a featured vocalist on Tinariwen’s new album Hoggar and previously recorded with Imarhan on their 2022 release Aboogi. She’s currently opening for Tinariwen on their European tour. I keep returning to the oud line in “Naada”: it holds the whole thing in place while everything else moves around it.
ABA is out October 9th on Real World Records.
