Discostan - Mohammed Wardi: The Voice of Joy محمد وردي

This month's NTS show shines a light on the immortal Mohammed Wardi (محمد وردي), a giant of Sudanese music who was beloved in East Africa and beyond. Known as the singer with a “golden throat,” the one-time schoolteacher turned to music in his 20s, quickly marrying his soulful oud and voice to the romantic words of poets like Ismail Hassan. Despite receiving no formal musical training, Wardi's Nubian songs brought him acclaim in Sudan and parts of Egypt before spreading all over Africa. The singer would later sing to stadiums full of people in Ethiopia and Cameroon that didn't understand his Arabic lyrics. While Wardi's music made him beloved across Sudan, his staunch communist politics made him an enemy of half a century's worth of Sudanese strongmen. In 1964, one of his most famous songs, “October Al Akhdar” (Green October), commemorated a civilian uprising that brought down a military dictatorship. (Even though he passed away in 2012, some say his songs played a part in helping bringing an end to the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir in 2019.) But Wardi was also imprisoned for 18 months in 1971 by dictator Jaafar al Numairi for supporting the previous regime. Later, after a family member was executed as part of another coup in 1989, Wardi went into exile. That 15-year trip took him to Egypt and Los Angeles for a time before he returned to Sudan in search of a kidney donor. Wardi spent the last years of his life at home , continuing his strident political commentary and beautiful music. He died in 2012, leaving a legacy that lives on in the hearts of Sudanese across the world. His songs — most of which number 10 minutes or longer — are hard to access in good quality but thanks to a legion of fans, they live on in glory on Youtube and other pockets of the Internet. I've collected a few of my favorites here, most of which originate from Wardi's years of exile. Pardon the sometimes scratchy sounds and tape hiss and relish the master's voice, always alive and speaking us again today. "Art is like water," Wardi said in an interview nearly 15 years ago. "You can't seal off its source. It will trickle inexorably through the rock to emerge in a new spring somewhere el