Sudanese album tops World Music Charts Europe in September

At the top of the monthly chart is Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan's Red Sea Coast by Noori and his Dorpa Band. In second place is South Africa’s The Movers with The Movers Vol. 1 – 1970–1976, while Malian desert blues guitarist Vieux Farka Touré’s Les Racines is in sixth. 

From an unknown entity playing in the balmy streets of Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan, just a year ago, Noori and his Dorpa Band’s swift rise to the top echelons of world music has been unstoppable. Described as the soundtrack of Sudan’s revolution, Beja Power! jumped two spots up from No 3 in August.

The collection fuses Sudanese grooves with electric soul, blues, jazz and rock, and pays homage to the Beja community’s long and rich traditions and its quest for equity and justice in the face of decades-long government repression.

The band’s discovered by American label Ostinato Records in late 2021 via TikTok has now truly announced itself to the world through the album released on 3 June. 

Writing for OkayAfrica, Ostinato Records founder Vik Sohonie describes the offering as a six-track portal to another time and place, of melodies long forgotten and never before interpreted by an electric and brass-driven ensemble.

In the same vein, The Movers’ The Movers Vol. 1 – 1970-1976 cements the South African group’s reputation. The fact that the album, released on 5 August, is sitting at No 2 is a testament to the near-mythic position that the group, formed in 1967, continues to occupy around the world.

And equally impressive is Les Racines. The sixth album by Mali’s Vieux Farka Touré holds onto No 6 for a second straight month. The project has received high praise for what has been described as the artist’s return to his Malian roots and the style of his father, Ali Farka Touré, the late guitar virtuoso.

This week, Touré Jr released ‘Tongo Barra’, the second single off his collaborative album with American psychedelic band Khruangbin. The album, titled Ali, is in honour of his father and is slated for release on 23 September.