(mellow music) ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ (Alsarah singing foreign language) - At my foundational level, I am a listener.

I love listening to music.

I love listening to sounds.

I love listening to people make music and sounds.

(Alsarah singing foreign language) The first time I came to New York, I was 14.

It was like two years after we'd moved to the States.

We drove straight to Brooklyn 'cause there's like a big Sudani community in the area.

My name is Alsarah, I am a Sudanese musician, singer, songwriter, band leader, producer, and ethnomusicologist.

("Ya Watan" by Alsarah and The Nubatones) (both singing foreign language) Come, come.

I want everyone to meet my co-founder.

We were discussing migration patterns and the way they affect culture.

And then he was like, "You know, it'd be amazing to do a concert where we highlight that."

I was like, "It'd be amazing to do a band."

- We've had the luxury, in a way, of time with it.

You know that we've done it now for some projects are gone in a blink of eye and like we've been able to do it now for decades.

(mellow percussion music) - [Speaker] Alsarah and The Nubatones (foreign language).

- It's actually the very first song that we recorded together as The Nubatones.

(Alsarah vocalizes) Stand up for the anthem.

- [Speaker 2] Alsarah and the Nubatones.

♪ Habibi ♪ ♪ Habibi ♪ ♪ Habibi ♪ ♪ Habibi ♪ (mellow percussion music) - We're both immigrants.

Everybody in the band is.

For us, it was about really establishing this place in between national concepts and genre concepts that was real and true to the way we saw the world and the way we grew up.

(Alsarah sings foreign language) All right.

- Was that you pretending to kick- - Smash, smash, smash.

- The guitar!

- Rock star.

Smash!

(ethereal music) - When we got to the States, Alsarah got into music first, before I did and then I was just like copying everything she did.

- You weren't copying, you were doing your own thing.

- I was doing my acting thing.

- From the beginning, I was like, I know I want my sister in this band.

I just need to make enough money first 'cause she lives really far away and that ticket's expensive.

I'm doing the immigrant thing, you know, family business.

Family business, y'all.

(Alsarah vocalizes) (Nahid vocalizes) So I had this thing buzzing in my brain.

I wanted to figure out where the melody was gonna go.

Eventually, Rami had this like really sick rhythm to go with it.

Ka ka ka ka ka ka ka.

And Brendan started riffing on it and so did Moena.

(mellow music) That's kind of fed into the second part of it where it's like, (Alsarah hums) and I wrote the lyrics two months later.

- Sometimes it does take time for the words to come and that's totally fine.

- Yeah 'cause for me songs are like, are paintings, you're making a picture.

Sometimes that corner of the painting is calling, and sometimes you start in the middle, and sometimes you start with a color, sometimes you start with a line.

I'm listening.

I'm listening for something.

I'm putting together, we're putting together a picture and I get the pleasure of creating with like expert painters, other expert painters.

(singing foreign language) (gentle music) We're about to go on stage without a rehearsal.

A highly unusual format.

- [Crew Member] Why didn't you do it?

- We didn't have time.

Everybody has a job and a life.

- Okay, how do you feel about "Fa3el Fi Eldawam"?

I heard you listening to it.

- I did, I feel better about it.

I think we should listen to it again.

If we don't hit the background vocals in "Fa3el Fi Eldawam", it just loses the oomph.

- Okay, no no no no, I hear you.

(Nahid vocalizes) (Alsarah sings foreign language) (Nahid vocalizes) - Comfort, comfort.

- Comfort is key and we're warm.

Look how many layers we're wearing.

- I know, I'm so warm.

- But still, the barn is cold so I wanna be ready.

("Fa3el Fi Eldawam" by Alsarah and The Nubatones) (Alsarah sings foreign language) (group speaks foreign language) (Alsarah speaks foreign language) (grandmother speaks foreign language) (grandmother laughs) (Alsarah speaks foreign language) Baba's home, yay!

He upcycles the old bottles.

I love the way Baba does this.

- A wine out of it.

No, and it kept being too bitter for a long time.

- Oh, yeah.

- And then you got it, you really got it after a while.

- Everyone is vegetarian in this house, they driving me nuts.

(group laughs) Seriously.

(group speaks foreign language) (Alsarah sings foreign language) (oud plays) Bye, Baba, I love you.

Thank you.

(mellow music) (Alsarah sings foreign language) (bright music) I remember when I first got this tape.

It was the first time I really like started to wrap my mind around the fact that as a woman and as a Sudanese woman, I come from a long lineage of very strong musicians and composers.

Because of all these tapes, I wanted my own tape so our first tape with The Nubatones.

Sold out.

And this was the second baby that I made with The Nubatones.

And this was the third and final baby I made with The Nubatones.

Not final, we're gonna have more obviously, but.

"Seasons of the Road", I think of the sound of the album as a deeper dive into what I call East African retro pop.

("Seasons of the Road" by Alsarah and the Nubatones) (Alsarah sings foreign language) I come from a Nubian background so we've been going through displacement since my great grandparents.

My parents, being the leftist organizers that they are, we left Sudan to go to Yemen because they kind of landed on the wanted list and then in 1994, there was a war that broke out in Yemen and we ended up moving to the States very randomly, very suddenly with zero plans to move here.

I do not think of home as a physical space anymore so for me, Sudan is wherever there is Sudanese people.

(ethereal music) The war, which has now ravished Sudan completely since 2023, is really an extension and an escalation of all that's been going on in the last 30 years, which had already displaced so many of us.

I'm here, in Kampala, gathering displaced Sudanese musicians for a music residency.

(group speaks foreign language) (bright music) One of the primary focuses that we have in this residency is to exchange music, to exchange knowledge, and to build with one another.

(Alsarah speaks foreign language) We are really decentralizing the dominant narrative that has been taking place in Sudan since 1956 of an Arab centered, (indistinct) centered sound.

And I wanted a real strong representation of language, genders, religions.

(Alsarah vocalizes) (upbeat music) (group singing foreign language) Some of the musicians here are, at multiple times, displaced.

Myself included.

To have a narrative that includes all of us just, it feels like going home.

(bright music) (both speaking foreign language) Do I need a name card as well?

- Yeah.

- Probably, right?

(crowd murmurs) - [Speaker 3] One, two.

Check, one, two.

(Alsarah speaks foreign language) (gentle music) (singing foreign language) We don't have an archive right now.

Not a true archive that really reflects Sudanese people and its massive, massive cultural heritage.

We have to become active participants in creating the new archive.

(Alsarah speaks foreign language) (crowd cheers) (bright music) Any hope of peace, it has to come from a space of learning about each other's cultures, each other's languages, each other's music and rhythms.

I've been in the music industry for 20 years now.

Sometimes I forget that joy.

I want everyone to know that joy is kind of a right, it's not a privilege.

We have the right to be happy, we have the right to enjoy music, we have the right to festivals, we have the right to all of this.

(upbeat music) (crowd shouts) I love this view.

Even when she's cloudy, she's cute.

We recorded the concert at the end of the residency and we're now mixing it to produce a live album.

This is the time to start writing our own vocabulary, our own history, our own story with our own hands.

Unlike me, most other musicians... Camillo!

- Hello.

- Hi.

I have something for you.

- Nice.

- It's the album and this is the incense I made to go with it.

- Nice.

- I think the first session I ever recorded in New York was here.

2007.

"Beldna Smih", number ten.

Can we go to that one for a sec?

(bright music) - 'Cause it was a like recording, then there were technical challenges.

- There was definitely some moments where I was like, "Oh, someone knocked the mic over."

- Yes, yes, yes, a few moments where- - Someone's talking to someone next to the microphone!

- Yeah.

(bright music) I bring up those claps.

- No bags on the chairs 'cause chairs are for the humans.

- Okay.

(oud plays gently) (crowd cheers) - Music for me, it's a really, really, really powerful time keeper.

This is why I will always stay invested and true to it.

(crowd member shouts) ("Nuba Noutou" by Alsarah and the Nubatones) (Alsarah sings foreign language)