Alsarah and the Nubatones are back after a five-year pause with their third album, Seasons of the Road, and it’s a knockout. Alsarah (born Sarah Mohamed Abunama-Elgad in Khartoum, Sudan) has lived in the United States since she was a child. She studied at Wesleyan University, writing her ethnomusicology thesis on Sudanese Zar music, a Sufi tradition. After graduating in 2009, she moved to New York and formed her band, the Nubatones. The band’s music updates Sudanese traditions with various influences, but never losing the distinctive flavors of Alsarah’s homeland. This album begins a new chapter in the band’s career, and demonstrates the advantages of keeping a band together over many years. The coherence and chemistry among these musicians is evident throughout.
The band will now be touring the album, including an appearance at Joe’s Pub in New York on April 6. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Banner photo by Nousha Salimi
Banning Eyre: Alsarah, nice to see you again. This album is wonderful. But before we go there, give me a little update. What's been going on? It's quite a while since your previous album, isn't it?
Alsarah: Yeah, it's almost five years since the last album. A lot's been going on with Sudan and the world in general. There's been a lot of upheaval. Before that, there was COVID, so it has just felt like we went from one thing to the next. But it's been kind of a blessing in disguise because it's allowed me to focus my energy on how I want to collectively build with other people and how to actively seek the shaping of a community around music. For me, my music and my politics are sort of extensions of each other. I want to see the world I live in look the way I want, and to move towards that.
I imagine a lot of that went into this album. How did you approach recording after such a long break? And talk about the title too.
It’s Mawasim Atariq, which means Seasons of the Road. It’s an album that was written slowly over the five years. It started with the first track “Men Ana,” which was written right around the revolution in Sudan. We went there in 2020 to film a video for it, thinking that by the time we finished the video, we would be done with the album. The video is an all-Sudanese production. But right as we were wrapping up shooting in January, we got shut down for COVID for a year. So that kind of slowed everything down. And I think allowed for a slower writing process, and time to think about how I want to tie the different songs and stories together into a continuous journey. Nothing about this album is an arrival. It's more like a soundtrack to a road.
You say your music and your politics are linked. So you're thinking a lot, obviously, about what's going on in Sudan, which is so troubling. And we'll get to that a bit. But let’s go through the songs. Let's start with “Fael Fi Aldawam.”
It means “active in infinity.” It’s like something moving in infinity. This song is really about the resurrection of this revolutionary energy inside of you that happens in a way that feels instinctual to me, like an organic response. So there’s an infiniteness to it. As we say in Sudan, it’s dedicated to that flame of change inside of you. In the words of Octavia Butler and my mentor, Toshi Regan, God is change. Change is the only constant you have in life and you have to figure out how to really celebrate the powers it gives you, while you are still mourning losses, but not getting stuck in that space of nostalgia, which I feel often happens when people are forcibly displaced. It makes you almost stuck in a way.
For me, nostalgia feels honestly like the heroin of emotions. You feel so good when you indulge in it; it feels so good when you just let yourself sink into it. But it freezes you in a pink glaze that is a distorted version of what actually was. And that is one of the most dangerous places I think for our people to land in when they are experiencing a collective grief. And for me as someone who's been in displacement for multiple generations—if you think about my people's displacement and my personal history of moving and being a refugee—I felt like it's something I have a lot of experience with and something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. And this song for me kind of came out a refusal to indulge in that space anymore. Even if it feels hard and difficult right now to see it, it's a really important goalpost to have.
Remind me of your personal history. You were born in Sudan and you left as a refugee, right?
I left as a refugee in 1994. I moved to Yemen briefly. My parents are both political asylees. So we ended up in the States actually randomly after the war broke out in Yemen in ‘94. There was a brief civil war and we were evacuated in emergency evacuation. We ended up in the States by accident. So this idea for us that we were going home was something that was deep and intrinsic in my journey.
In diaspora, I remember, I made the choice that you have to start building where you are and setting roots wherever you go. What does that mean to set roots somewhere new? There’s that feeling like you're letting go of who you are. That is something I've been navigating through even on the last album, Manara, there is this idea of moving through borders as yourself, bringing home with you everywhere you go. What state of mind do you need to develop for that?
You said “Men Ana” is about the revolution. It begins with the sound of fire crackling. When you think back to that moment, there was a moment of hope, wasn't there?
There was a moment of tremendous hope. “Men Ana” was written right after the revolution was dispersed. It's really a song about defining yourself in a space of waiting for the change that you know is coming. So it was really an ode and an homage to the revolution, seeing that it was already being destroyed from outside and from within.
I particularly love the song “Soundani,” which features oud and your voice. I have to say, Brandon Terzic’s oud playing is really sounding fantastic on this album.
Right? He's killing it. Yeah. I am obsessed with that oud solo. We did a couple of takes of it and then it was really amazing to capture the exact right moment inside of it. He tried to resist me at first. “Let's cut it here.” I was like, “No, it's untouchable.”
I know how that is.
It's good to be able to be the producer in the room at some point, because you're like, “No, we're just vetoing you right now.”
There you are. You have to be the boss at some point. So what is that song saying?
“Soundani” is a love song, a Sufi love song. My love for Sudani has always felt like this swirling, swirling thing that's very complicated and it's got these upheavals. And it is always in resistance to the status quo of what it means to be Sudani.
I feel like there's so much about our history as Sudanese people that we have not really unpacked, and it has led to where we are. It has led to a lot of the reasons why we're unable to see the change we need to make happen. Unpacking our internal colonization is a really important thing to me. It’s part of my life work in the Sudanese community, even though sometimes it makes me kind of the black sheep. But I think we all have roles in the revolution, and mine is to keep pushing and to create spaces where people can be fully themselves. All I want to see is a Sudan that has room for all of us, because it does. It has space for all of us, for all the kinds of ways we can be Sudanese.
This idea that there's only one, homogenous way to be is a form of repression and colonization. That has been internalized by us, and it came to us from the outside. We are a very diverse place, and leaving room for each person is the key to actually having harmony. You know, there's this idea of melding everything together into one mushy soup bowl. But telling people not to feel threatened while their identities are being erased in front of them, is unrealistic. It doesn't work that way, especially when you're placing one group very clearly on top. So “Soundani” is really a Sufi devotional, post-borders love song.
And then we get “Bye Bye,” where you're singing in English. This one has a very familiar Sudanese rhythm. It reminds me of Abdel Gadir Salim and other artists of that era. In general, I love the grooves on this album. It's rocking throughout.
Thank you. Rami El-Aasser [the percussionist] is killing it. I love my band. I love being in the Nubatones. It's really beautiful to work with people who bring so much of themselves to the room and to the songs every single time. It's an honor to get to work with them and to get to arrange with them.
You guys have been together long enough that there's a lot of chemistry there. You really feel that on this album.
It's true. It's a family vibe at this point. We've been together for like 11 years now.
Beautiful. So what about “Bye Bye”? What's it saying?
That is a breakup song, fully and truly. Because you know it's a very enthusiastic breakup song. It's like, “My God, I am so leaving.”
Okay.
I always tell people I don't really like writing love songs, but it turns out I love writing breakup songs.
You and Taylor, right?
(laughs) I will indulge myself in this space of loathing! You know, being in love and going through a major breakup is a part of everybody's life, and it's an important part of the road you're on. The love we keep, whether it's platonic, romantic, or lifelong, is an essential part of feeding your soul. For me, politics, and joy and partying and love are all part of what makes a human a human. It’s important that we acknowledge that this is part of everyone's story. I feel like we're finally moving away from this idea that in music, if you're a political entity, somehow you're not allowed to become a romantic entity or you're not allowed to become a sexual entity. You have to just be this one thing. But nobody is that way. People are all things all at once. You know, you might catch me one day with 10,000 political posts and the next day with a picture looking cute.
It seems like in popular music we go through phases of being political and not being political. It feels like we're coming into a time where engagemet is on the rise again for all sorts of reasons. How about the song “Turn Around,” another one in English, and another great groove too.
Musically speaking, “Turn Around” was really about trying to connect East Africa to the sound of that early Americana banjo sound. It's not just me. The banjo is as African instrument originally that came to the States. So with “Turn Around,” I was actively trying to make a bridge between a lot of Black Americana sounds as well as Sudanese African sounds, and finding the place where it all gels together. And it was also, you know, a song that's dedicated to my mentor Toshi Regan, who was one of the major influences in helping me pull this album together musically.
Toshi is very impressive. I've interviewed Toshi about her “Parable of the Sower” project. How did she become your mentor?
It started a couple of years ago, actually before this album. We’re both in New York, both in Brooklyn, and she tapped me for an all-women show that she was doing. Then we kind of started talking, and we hit it off. We worked on a project together that I have shelved, but that may be will come out next year. We’ll see. It’s all in English, and I decided I didn't want to release it before I released my music with the Nubatones. Arabic and Nubian first. It just wasn't the time for those songs yet. Anyway, Toshi has been a major influence on the way I navigate, how to bridge my politics, my community building, my cultural producing, you know, connecting the dots of different homes, building and setting roots in different ways. She's a real master at work, a brilliant musician and a brilliant scholar. And it's not just about making music. It’s wonderful to find someone who leaves room for all the different aspects of you, so you don't have to choose one or the other.
I’m fascinated by the history of the banjo. We’ve done shows about that. And it's cool now the way there's this rising tide of young Black banjo players in America, kind of reclaiming the instrument that has such a fascinating twisted history of having been, I don't know, whitewashed, you might say.
It’s true. I mean all country music was whitewashed for a long time. And you know, there’s a huge country fan base in East Africa, Kenya, Uganda. And for me, when I wrote that song, I could hear the song in both the United States and in Kenya and in Sudan. That felt like a good moment of success, you know?
One of our producers did a great show for us about country music in Kenya.
I heard it. I'm a big fan of the show. I've been a fan for a long time.
Good to know. Yes, that one is a classic, and a fascinating subject.
“Disco Star” is an unusual song. It has all these different rhythms in it. What's going on there?
“Disco Star” was I think the second song I wrote on the album. It's another song about connecting a lot of different thoughts. It’s a song with a lot of deep reflection. I don't know how to explain it. I wrote this when I was kind of in a depressive state. I’m not gonna lie. I felt really heartbroken actually by the fact that the deeper I got into the music industry, the more I realized what an imperialistic space it is. It’s not that I didn't know that, but to really see it and come face-to-face with it after you've been in it for many years was heartbreaking, because I had such a pure relationship with music. It was always a place of escape, a place where I felt safest, a place where I felt like I could visit the world through sound and it felt like a place of absolute freedom. And then the deeper I got into the industry, the more it became clear that I'm not allowed to have that freedom if I want to “make it” in the industry, whatever that means.
It was a little bit heartbreaking at first because I was coming face to face with the fact that, my God! A lot of people in this business don't actually like musicians, and they don't even like music. They just like fame. And they like money. I only write from the heart. I'm not interested in anything else, because for me making music has always been something I just did in my bedroom to start with, and I'm happy to do it in my bedroom again.
So on this song, I was trying to capture what it feels like when you go really heavy and really low. I like to dance a lot. I like to go to the clubs. I'm a big club kid. There's always a moment when you're in the club, or in the discotheque, as we said back in the day, and you're just rising up into it. You are feeling the music come in and wash you out, wash the emotion out. And then there's this explosion of euphoria that can come afterwards. When you realize that, if you can make it through that dark space, you can make it out the other side. And that applies not just to the music industry per se. It applies to so many other aspects of life around me.
The song kind of takes you through all that. It starts as a kind of march, with an almost dirge-like dark feeling, and then it ends in something close to disco, but with an oud solo!
Exactly. Euphoria at the end of every dark tunnel.
There you go. Now the song “Habibi” is another one with a rich, dense soundscape. A lot going on in that groove.
This song is an homage and a dedication, a love song to revolutionary folks. I'm someone who doesn't necessarily identify as an activist per se, but I'm someone who's always lived in deep admiration of activists, surrounded by them and raised by them. And I like to make music for them. So this is a love song to that revolutionary fighter, that person constantly willing to face danger on the outside and their lackings on the inside in a way that is brave enough to allow for change. That's really what I seek. It's like, how do you achieve that?
Then we have “Tendo,” this mournful, watery lullaby that ends the vocal part of the album. What's that song saying?
It’s a lullaby. It's not saying anything. It's just a play on the word “tendo.” A lot of lullabies use different sounds in that way. I chose this particular sound because I felt like it would match the image I had in mind. I imagined a woman rocking her child to sleep at the bottom of the ship as it made a mysterious crossing from one place of danger to another place of danger that is unknown.
Wow.
I was trying to channel that feeling of loss, as well as trying to calm yourself and calm your child. You hope that where you're going to is going to be safer and better, but you don't really know. So it's “Tendo,” but sometimes I call it “Lullaby From the Bottom of a Ship.”
What does the word mean?
It doesn't mean anything. It's just a sound. Because I believe in the power of sounds. I went through a phase in my teenage years where I collected lullabies from around the world. And everyone chooses different random sounds for lullabies. No one ever really commits to lyrics. And what I've noticed is that the consonants a person picks for their lullaby usually reflect of a lot of other things beyond. So I wanted to create that feeling.
The album ends with this beautiful oud instrumental. Once again, Brandon sounds fantastic.
Yeah. We were jamming for like an hour and a half and we just started pressing record.
Well, congratulations. It's a terrific album. You mentioned how your music and your politics are related. So let me ask you about the politics of your homeland, Sudan. A of people looking at what's happening in Sudan find it very, very confusing. Myself included. Right now, it looks like the government forces are coming back. But is that good? Do you feel like there are any good guys in this fight?
No, no, no, I do not. I do not feel like there are any good guys in this fight. There is no good guy. That’s why it's confusing to Western media because they are used to like: this is the singular bad guy and this is the singular good guy. But it never really works like that in real life. There are multitudes of bad guys. And in this case, in Sudan, this didn't just start two years ago. It’s a long history and it reached a point of explosion two years ago. It had been building slowly and with outside forces interfering in the sit-ins and the revolution. This is really a direct link to where we end up today in Khartoum. But SAF and the RSF are extensions of each other. SAF created the RSF. They work together. SAF created the RSF so it could go and do the dirty work.
This has been going on around Sudan for the last 30 years. The thing now is they’ve started having a power grab because each of them is being funded by an outside entity, the UAE and Egypt for SAF. And you have for RSF Saudi Arabia and the EU. And so it’s all these big heavy hitters who have trillions of dollars invested in Sudan. Trillions! And with this explosion, now it's become a free-for-all with the resources, the same way it is in Congo. And so it is not in any of their best interests that this stops. And they don't care how many Black bodies are killed in the process. It makes it easier. Now it's empty. People forget, no one has a war like this in a place that doesn't have resources.
Of course, of course.
These resources are being controlled by major players, and part of the deal the UAE is establishing with the U.S. is that it's not going to put it under sanctions for funding the RSF in exchange for a certain amount of minerals. So you've got all this happening in the background between these outside forces who are capitalizing on the fact that there was already a fight.
That’s dark. So it's a struggle over resources, an ego-driven power grab between these entities. There's really no thought of governance or the future of the people. So, where do you find hope in any of that?
Man, it's hard. I don't have any advice. I struggled every day over five years to get this album made. One step forward, two steps back. I'm sorry. I want to have hope too. I don't have any advice.
Fair enough. Well, you've made a beautiful contribution to this moment for Sudan, with all its tragic implications.
Honestly, while all of this is going down, people are really trying to hold each other up. I do want to acknowledge that mutual aid is the only reason people haven't completely died off at this point. Everyone in the diaspora is constantly raising funds. Actually, I'm a co-founder of an initiative called Sunduq Al Sudan(sunduqalsudan.org). We're not an NGO. We have a 501(c)3 and we send 100 % of all the money we gather to mutual aid networks inside Sudan itself, places that are hard to reach because it's very hard to get aid in and out. So, you know, in response to the NGO world, basically leaving Sudan stranded, and now with the USAID stuff that's going on, it's thrown in a whole other level of disparity to the situation. It really is about us for us at this point. Things have been bad for a long time, so there's actually quite an interesting network of people supporting Sudanese basic needs, health care, food…
Because they know they can't rely on the government, they have to do it themselves.
Exactly. So we're constantly raising funds. If you go to the website, you can find our donate button. You can find information about the past campaigns we've been running. Every $10,000 we donate to a different entity inside Sudan. Our last campaign was given to an organization that does a lot of work in the Nuba Mountains in West Kordofan. I think the last one would be our sixth or seventh campaign. So please spread the word, let people know.
Thank you, Alsarah. It's great to talk to you.
Thank you.
