Around this time in past years, the Grand Holiday Villa Hotel would be packed as crowds gathered from all over at the exhibition grounds in Bahri. The energy spread across Khartoum, Omdurman, and Bahri, with unannounced concerts, spontaneous gatherings, and carefully planned events that finally got approved.
People were full of excitement, while riot control vehicles waited outside, especially near the gates of the main venues. It felt like an unofficial holiday— but only for devoted listeners, hip-hop artists, and bloggers eager for new releases.
This all started with an unspoken idea that the last quarter of each year would be rap season. In an interview, Azzo, a music blogger and founder of Al-Rassa magazine, said, “For years, artists have looked forward to this season to release new music; it’s usually the peak time for hip-hop each year.”
He added that the idea of dedicating a day to Sudanese rap was a collaborative one. It’s unclear who exactly initiated it or how it came to be, but it was inspired by Sudan’s symbol: 249, aligning with September 24. However, Azzo clarified that the idea wasn’t entirely new; the global hip-hop community has long used regional or area codes as references, and this date became part of artists’ plans and fans’ expectations.
This year, however, all that anticipation has vanished, replaced by war and tragic memories. The hope is that life will return to rap, which had just begun to flourish in newfound freedom. To date, no events have been announced; the city that was once the epicenter of Sudanese hip-hop and had consistently celebrated this day is now empty, filled only with bullets and battlegrounds.
Before that?
“It’s the same labels over and over— lack of manners, rebelliousness, and similar descriptions,” says Mohamed Al-Mustafa (SB), a music blogger and founder of the Rakoba group, who has documented Sudanese rap since 2008. Al-Mustafa explains that early rap in Sudan took two main forms: “forum rap,” similar to Gulf rap with solo track releases, and a style where groups, like Noslang, The Circle, and the famous Nas Jota, worked to hold concerts and build a fanbase.
For a long time, rap was isolated, with underground rappers limited to small circles and little acceptance. This isolation had several causes. Rap first appeared in the early 2000s, influenced by African-American and Gulf rap cultures, as most early rappers were either Sudanese raised in Gulf countries or those who naturally came across rap’s African-American style, which made it hard to attract diverse local audiences. Another big reason was the outright rejection of rap itself, with accusations against its music and lyrics. This rejection was stronger than the efforts to establish rap as a Sudanese art form.
Over time, Sudanese rappers worked hard to create something new, growing out of urban areas while acknowledging the gaps between them. When the late rapper Rana Bader Aldeen had the chance to appear on a local TV show, she performed a track expressing her desire for freedom and the public’s negative view of rap. For conservative groups, rap seemed too transparent, leading them to try to control public taste and limit the rap community, often with total rejection. Criticisms like “this isn’t Sudanese” and accusations of cultural alienation were at the core of this pushback.
“It can be said that the history of peoples without history is the history of their struggle against the state,” writes Pierre Clastres in Society Against the State.
It’s hard to say exactly when hip-hop started in Sudan since recording was mainly done by two government institutions, Sudanese Radio and Television, which didn’t do much to preserve rare recordings. Many of these recordings haven’t even been digitized. What we know is that in the early 1990s, Sudanese singer Yousif el-Mosley made one of the first rap attempts with his song Habayebna, released in 1994.
The first Sudanese rap group, Born in Black, was formed in 1996 and released their debut album History in 2004. In the late 1990s, the band Hilahob became popular for mixing different art styles and took a step into rap with their music video Goroshi in 1999.
In the early 2000s, rap in Sudan began to take on a more serious tone, marked by Nile’s release of Ma Dayma Leek in 2003. Shortly after, the group Nas Jota rose to prominence due to their strong connection to Sudanese society and the clear social and political messages conveyed in their tracks. Their 2007 release, Nas Hiltna, solidified their popularity, as they played a pivotal role in anchoring rap within Sudanese culture and expressing the nation’s rebellious spirit and frustrations in the face of poverty and oppression.
Around the same time, other musical groups began to emerge, organizing events in universities and public spaces. Among them was B4K in Khartoum, whose track Al-Raksha gained widespread recognition in 2013.
Rap and social movements
Rap became closely tied to the surrounding events, with uprisings and revolutions shaping the last decade of Sudanese rap. Songs emerged alongside protests, highlighting social and political issues in Sudan and turning public spaces and universities into stages for revolutionary rap.
During the 2013 uprising, Nas Jota released No to Dictatorship. Later, the December 2018 revolution marked a major shift, with old revolutionary tracks resurfacing and rappers creating new songs that resonated with the revolution’s goals. Rap was present through both the revolution’s victories and its tragedies, capturing these moments and depicting scenes of protests, imprisonment, and military violence.
Tracks were released that deeply resonated with the Sudanese people at the time, like Sudan Without Kizan and Nas Jota’s comeback track Tasqut Bas (Just Fall, That is All), which was the slogan of the time. Meanwhile, Flippter captured the brutal dispersal of the sit-in at the General Command on June 3, 2019, in his poignant song Blue.
In its cultural and social context, Sudanese rap has both celebrated Sudanese culture and highlighted the ethnic and social diversity of its artists, reflecting the multifaceted backgrounds of Sudanese society. This unique blend has given Sudanese rap a distinctive identity throughout its years-long journey of establishing itself.
Notable examples include collaborations like Am Goron by Mo Rezeqi and Rexus, and Aboy el-Sheikh by Ali Naseraldeen and Esaam Satti Azzo. The founder of Al-Rassa magazine, asserts today that the ongoing crisis in Sudan, including its impact on the artistic sector and the rap scene, will not pose a significant obstacle for rappers. He acknowledges that the war has caused disruptions and delays in their work, but he is confident that they will eventually return with new tracks, many of which will likely capture the tragedies Sudan has experienced since the conflict began.
Azzo also highlighted recent releases by Soulja, such as Ayaam, which came out last July, and Tarat al-Tayara by Dafencii. He anticipates the release of more works as the final quarter of the year progresses.
From Sennar State, rapper and producer AlAmin Salah (All-moony) reinforces Azzo’s theory. After several days of trying to reach him for an interview—hindered by thousands of kilometers and a poor network connection— All-moony finally managed to send voice recordings, informing me that he had secured a stable connection. In these messages, he reflected on the period before April, discussing the evolution of Sudanese rap. He explained how rap had become increasingly tied to Sudan’s reality, embedding its culture and diverse backgrounds.
This shift motivated him to develop his approach, transitioning to writing in Arabic after years of composing his songs in English. All-moony also revisited the projects he had planned to launch earlier this year, sharing his excitement about this significant milestone and his hope to release something truly remarkable on that date.
Before he could carry out his plans, All-moony woke up one day to find that everything he had envisioned was no longer possible. Forced to leave Khartoum, he now waits in the city of Sennar for the crisis to end, holding onto the hope of returning. However, he describes this hope as nothing more than a state of denial—a realization that pushed him to rise above the circumstances and begin work on an entirely new project.
In his latest album, Denial, All-moony portrays the daily lives and dreams of Khartoum’s displaced residents. The album charts their journey from the initial moment of displacement—what he refers to as “hour zero”—to the present, where many, caught in a state of denial, cling to the hope of returning to the life they knew before it all fell apart.
*This article was originally published in Arabic on Ma3azef.
