A Search for Home: Alsarah and the Nubatones with "Ya Watan"

Our random tune today is by Alsarah and the Nubatones, and is called Ya Watan. A Sudanese-American singer, songwriter and ethnomusicologist, Alsarah and her family fled Sudan when she was eight during the 1989 coup. Settling in Yemen, they were again forced to flee in 1994 during the Yemeni civil war. They found political asylum in Boston, where she sang in world music choirs and attended a performing arts high school. She then studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. Alsarah formed Alsarah and the Nubatones in 2010 after serving as the singer of the Zanzabari band Sound of Tarab for six years in New York City. The band consists of Alsarah and her sister Nahid on vocals with backing musicians. Alsarah has also been featured in the documentary Beats of the Antonov. You can find Ya Watan as a single released by Wonderwheel Recordings in 2016, and on their 2016 album Manara. The song is an ode to the search for a home.

Poetry to Our Ears: Rasha and "Azara Alhai"

Today's song is called Azara Alhai and is performed by Rasha, a Sudanese singer who vocalizes everything from Arabic poetry to Sufi music and even underscores with hints of reggae. Rasha worked in theater, television and radio at the start of her career but was always interested in making music her primary vocation. To gain greater opportunities, she moved to Cairo in 1991 and then went to Spain where she began working on her debut album. That album centers around oud and percussion, enhanced by bass and backing guitar, also throwing in at times violins, accordions and a Sudanese big band. Topping it all are Rasha's vocals. The album, Sudaniyat, was subsequently named by Folk Roots magazine as one of the 10 best of 1997, and is where you will find Azara Alhai. You can also find it on the compilation CD Putumayo Presents: Acoustic Arabia (2008)

A Lover Back Home: Jamal Porto and "Gamar Badawi"

Today's song is by an Sudanese artist named Jamal Porto, who lived at an Egyptian inn in the Sinai called RAS. At RAS, musicians have gathered for over twenty years to meet and play, and the family that owns the inn built a recording studio. In 2005, they sent out a call to musicians from all over the world, and forty artists from ten nations responded. They played and recorded music, which resulted in a CD called The RAS Project: A Musical Journey in Sinai. This song, Gamar Badawi, is from that album and is also on the 2008 Putumayo compilation Acoustic Arabia, and is a song of longing for a beloved back in Sudan.