Straight Outta Khartoum

Anchored in a historical and geographical analysis of the music of the 2019 Sudanese revolution, this article demonstrates the various ways in which music has been politically consequential in Sudan since the mid-twentieth century. It shows that Khartoum’s music scenes were, historically, deeply intertwined with resistance movements because they provided vital avenues for political communication and collective identity formation, including politicized gender identities. The article argues that the displacement of these scenes through the out-migration of musicians, producers, and fans was not necessarily a political loss to popular resistance, as the literature on the politics of music suggests. Instead, the Khartoum case tells us that protracted displacement paradoxically forged resilient social infrastructures that proved invaluable in facilitating on-the-ground resistance in 2019. In addition, the gendered asymmetries in accessing these transnational processes significantly shaped the music of the revolution and the political identities fomented by it. This argument contributes important geographical and historical analysis to the literature on the 2019 Sudanese revolution, as well as demonstrating the hidden political opportunities for resistance music that are afforded by displacement

Argument (complex analysis) · Displacement (psychology) · Identity (music) · Identity politics · Politics · Popular music · Resistance (ecology) · Diverse Musicological Studies · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis