{"id":104615,"date":"2022-04-18T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=104615"},"modified":"2022-04-21T12:15:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T10:15:28","slug":"beja-power-noori-dorpa-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/beja-power-noori-dorpa-band\/","title":{"rendered":"Beja Power! &#8211; a battle cry to rally the Beja people of Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Composed as the soundtrack to Sudan\u2019s revolution, Noori and his Dorpa band, scouted by Ostinato Records, unveil Beja Power!, a defiant act of resistance and cultural pride.&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Noori lives in Port Sudan, a city on the coast of the Red Sea and the country\u2019s biggest port. As a young musician in the early 1990s, he forged an original instrument by combining the neck of a guitar &#8211; quite uncommon in these parts &#8211; with a vintage kissar from the \u201870s, a traditional four-string instrument strummed across the region, that his father, a renowned instrumentalist, gifted him. From then on, he became the sole player of this one-of-a-kind electrified tambo-guitar.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In late 2021, shortly after the November military coup which set off country-wide protests, Noori and his Dorpa band, formed in 2006, managed to catch the interest of Ostinato Records via TikTok. The label was drawn to their hypnotic Sudanese grooves and Naji\u2019s impeccable, airy tenor sax. Above all else, they discovered the Beja culture to which Noori belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=2061355897\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/beja-power-electric-soul-brass-from-sudans-red-sea-coast\">Beja Power! Electric Soul &amp; Brass from Sudan&#39;s Red Sea Coast by Noori &amp; His Dorpa Band<\/a><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Largely unknown, Beja (pronounced Bee-Jah) culture has been completely marginalized under the harsh rule of Sudan\u2019s former strongman, Omar al-Bashir, who managed to stay in power in Sudan for over thirty years. Before his fall in 2019, a campaign was waged to erase Beja language, music and deny the right to a dignified livelihood. There are economic reasons behind this effort to erase their identity. The Beja people are both blessed and cursed with vast deposits of gold that have been sold off to foreign companies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While their conditions have changed little since Bashir\u2019s ousting in 2019, the Beja community has been on the forefront of political change in Sudan for decades. The rebellious closure of Sudan&#8217;s biggest port is a regular demonstration of civil disobedience by Beja activists in their quest for equity and justice. Not unlike Enas, the young percussionist who was the focus of the short film <a href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/gidam-all-the-way\/\">Gidam<\/a>, Noori has decided to put his music in the service of his people. He believes the unleashing of Beja music would form the most potent act of resistance. His album <em>Beja Power!<\/em>, like its name suggests, is his contribution to the cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/beja-power-electric-soul-brass-from-sudans-red-sea-coast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Beja Power!<\/a> <\/em>will be out on June 24th via Ostinato Records<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-104616\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-100x100.jpeg 100w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-465x465.jpeg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-375x375.jpeg 375w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-200x200.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-85x85.jpeg 85w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/beja-power-xover-73x73.jpeg 73w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Composed as the soundtrack to Sudan\u2019s revolution, Noori and his Dorpa band, scouted by Ostinato Records, unveil Beja Power!, a defiant act of resistance and cultural pride.&nbsp; Noori lives in Port Sudan, a city on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":104618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944],"tags":[6618],"location":[8280],"yst_prominent_words":[12757,8407,28877,29729,8543],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104615"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=104615"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=104615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}