Ceasefire

This October release is undoubtedly one of the year’s success stories. “Ceasefire” brings together one of Sudan’s most dignified musicians from the northern Muslim part of the country with a rapper from the mainly Christian south. They have found novel common ground: there's the “al-aghani’ al-hadith’ Abdel Gadir Salim has been modernising over the decades on the one hand; and the calm, articulate rapping of young Emmanuel Jal, on the other.

Jal has come a long way from his days as a child soldier embroiled in one of Africa’s bloodiest and longest civil wars. If ever there was an example of music being an escape route from violence and poverty, this is one. He ducked out of the SPLA forces waging war against the Khartoum regime thanks to British aid worker Emma McCune. Ending up in Nairobi, Jal started rapping in Nuer Arabic, Swahili and English. His break came with the hit “Gua”, meaning “power” in Arabic and “good” in Nuer. It has been re-recorded for “Ceasefire” and underlines the under-stated yet slinky style Jal uses, reminiscent of the rapper Kaysha from Congo Kinshasa.

Both Salim and Jal leave space for these distinct styles to settle, expand and, in the end, interweave. “Baai” and “Ya Salam” are perhaps the best example of the sought-after exchange. The “tum tum” rhythm of urban Sudan, played by tabla and the bunguz triple bongo, is the percussive background for dialogues between Salim’s distinctive voice and the firm pleas for peace by Jal, both in Nuer and English.

Half of the songs are composed by the precocious pen of Emmanuel Jal who began his music in the gospel choirs of Nairobi in 2000. “Maybe I can make a difference,” he told a journalist recently, “because when they hear the voice of someone who has suffered, people will be willing to give more help.” Simple words, but heartfelt. They are from someone who has known hell-on-earth in the Sudanese deserts before embracing the nigh-mystical powers music can sometimes deliver.

Daniel Brown

October 2005