Noori & his Dorpa Band
Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast
Ostinato Records
2022
Music as a form of protest and resistance is a phenomenon that has existed since time immemorial. At times of political and social unrest, it has become a vital haven for musicians. It acts as a release valve for their grievances and convictions and a rallying clarion call for their audience. Outcomes are enhanced if a sense of emotional connection is established between the two. This symbiotic power has been particularly potent where indigenous people have been oppressed. Beja Power!, Electric Soul & Brass From Sudan’s Red Sea Coast, is a release which perpetuates this noble form of expression and dissent.
The Beja (pronounced Bee-Jah) people are an ethnic group of around 1.2 million people inhabiting Sudan, Egypt, and Eritrea. Carved in hieroglyphics, they are an ancient community, tracing their ancestry back millennia. Some ethnographers believe they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Nubian Kingdom of Kush. In recent history, they have lived primarily in the Eastern Desert, and it is to Sudan’s Red Sea Coast that this album transports us.
In the early 1990s, a young 18 year-old-musician, Noori, came across the neck of a guitar whilst rummaging the scrap yards of Port Sudan. Utilising this, together with a vintage 1970s tambour, a traditional 4-string lyre known in Sudan as a kissar, given to him by his father, a renowned instrumentalist, he used his skills to combine the two producing the unique electrified tambo-guitar.
Despite his young age, Noori was ardent in his desire to keep Beja music alive and contemporary. Of Beja culture itself, little is known; a deliberate policy. Their land to the east by the Red Sea is rich in gold, and successive Sudanese governments have ignored the Beja claims for recognition and access to the wealth within their soil. In particular, they were marginalised entirely under the 30 years-plus harsh rule of former strongman Omar al-Bashir. Indeed, Bashir waged a campaign to erase the Beja’s culture, language and music and deny them the right to a dignified livelihood.
It is against this background that his Dorpa Band was formed in 2006, and whilst conditions for the Beja have changed little since the ousting of Bashir in 2019, they have been at the forefront of political change in Sudan for decades; for example, they regularly demonstrate and close the country’s largest port. Noori firmly believes that unleashing Beja music fully complements such acts of protest.
Fast forward to late 2021, shortly after a November military coup which set off countrywide protests, and New York-based Ostinato Records returned to Khartoum to capture the sound of an ongoing and inspirational democratic revolution that began in 2019, discovering, via TikTok, the music of Noori and his Dorpa Band. Released in collaboration with Khartoum’s Ogali Creative Events Company, Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass From Sudan’s Red Sea Coast is a truly unique recording. Few Beja music recordings were made, let alone exist. The six songs here, on the first-ever international release of the Beja sound, each composed at a different stage in its history, comprising long-forgotten melodies and never before interpreted by an electric and brass-driven collective, is a chronicle of this near-forgotten music to be cherished.
Recorded in Omdurman, in addition to leader Noori with histambo-guitar, the other musicians appearing on the album are Danash (tabla), Fox (rhythm guitar), Gaido (bass guitar), Naji (tenor sax), and Tariq (rhythm guitar). Somewhat paradoxically, given the above, the music itself, defiantly Afro-jazz underscored by mesmerising Sudanese beats, sounds genuinely global. Elements of assouf, blues, jazz, rock, electric soul, psychedelia and surf permeate these updated historic melodies, perhaps not influenced by, but evoking, South-East Asia, North America, South American Andes and the Sahara.
Each of the six instrumental tracks represents an aspect of Beja life, and there is a distinct difference in the arrangement, shape, aura, mood, feel and melody of each. Listening to the single taken from the album, Al Amal, translating as ‘hope’, available to view here, is as good a place to begin as any. Rippling surf guitar figures duelling with the soulful tenor sax and sonorous bass lines, funky cross-rhythms of the tabla and congos all build irresistibly in both momentum and volume, and just as you think the climax has been reached, a blistering guitar solo elevates the tune even higher.
The opening cut, Saagama, is also a heady mix, beginning with Noori before introducing the others as intricate rhythms are woven, and a sax break meanders through like a laid-back Osibisa offering.
At a couple of seconds shy of six minutes, Wondeeb is heavy on percussion, which acts as a great counterpoint and foil for the other instruments, as the music builds, accelerando, layer upon layer, and continues at a fair lick in a groove reminiscent of western rock such as Little Feat or Grateful Dead. This is wonderfully constructed music, with not a note wasted or a beat misplaced.
It’s not all high-octane, high-energy material as tempo and tonal contrasts feature throughout. Qwal is a magnificently hypnotic piece, full of mystery and intrigue. Its cyclical, regal theme has a North African feel, perhaps nostalgically evocative of the Egyptian pharaohs or Kushite kings. Similarly, Jabana has a slower tempo and presents as a classical piece. A much more stripped-back track, devoid of percussion, the meandering sax solo and gentle, lilting guitar repetitions are somewhat intoxicating, or at the very least somnolent.
The album closes, all too soon for these ears, with Dales, just over seven and a half minutes of aural bliss. Something akin to a Sudanese-reggae jam of paradisical proportions, the track nevertheless encapsulates a unique and authentic sound.
Beja Power! succeeds eminently in being a powerful act of defiance, an acclamation and testament of devotion for Beja culture and a thoroughly enjoyable musical experience.
Out on 24th June via Ostinato Records