Abraham Moughrabi, producer/founder of Brighton’s Jinn Records and key member of The Rose Hill team, reveals more about his involvement with Sudanese musicians as part of the stunning ‘Sawa Sawa’ multimedia project, next steps for his label and ongoing admin avoidance…
What’s the story behind your work on the ‘Sawa Sawa’ project, how did it all come about?
I guess the beginning of ‘Sawa Sawa’ was two percussionists, Salma Omar and Ahmed Homaida. Their vision was to work with various musicians and vocalists and writers to put together this collaborative album. It started in 2018 when they did the first set of recordings in Sinai, Egypt with a Mauritanian singer and an Egyptian drummer. From there the whole story is basically plagued by circumstances.
In 2019 a revolution began in Sudan which meant that a lot of movement was restricted, there were curfews and lockdowns and it was dangerous to be out and about. I actually visited Sudan in January when it began, working with a different group of musicians, MaMan, Toodope and Rotation, making hip hop. A week before my flight out my friend calls me up and says “you know there’s like this revolution breaking out and the military are on the streets” and I said “well I’m going to come anyway”. So I spent three weeks kind of just like trying to stay safe locked into the studio recording revolution music.
It was so powerful and a number of projects that came out of that were released by those guys independently. The revolution then sort of came to an end in August or September 2019 when they when they formed the transitional government. The people had been out on the streets protesting all year, there were huge, huge gatherings and it was a really amazing time for building solidarity in the country.
So when that had finished Salma and Ahmed were able to carry on with the production of their project and at the end of 2020 I went out and met those guys. They played me the demos and I was blown away. The way they had pulled together so many different people and just the spirit behind it really moved me. They were looking for someone to get involved and help finish the production and the mixing and then consequently releasing it as well, so yeah I jumped on board. I also brought in some other local Brighton artists – Linos Wengara came in and collaborated on one of the tracks which is called ‘West Vybe’, him and Tim Lloyd his musical partner.
Do you think that solidarity and sense of purpose inevitably fed into the music?
It’s quite sad to talk about it because consequently there was another military coup in October of 2022 so that political movement was kind of squashed. But that sort of peak time of the revolution in Sudan was when most of this album was recorded so there was that sense of solidarity, and I mean lyrically it’s really clear, you know, explicitly talking about war and peace and unity. It’s obvious through the lyrics but also through the music. There’s a range of musicians from different genres, different styles, different parts of the country and from other countries, so that the kind of pan-African input went into it you know. It’s very much in that vein.
Did the musical range surprise you? What do you think that brought to the album?
Absolutely, I mean it’s so varied and stylistically it’s hard to put a finger on what’s going on with the album. There’s so much fusion even within one song like ‘Salam Alaikum’ where it starts off with this odd meter rhythm which is a traditional Sudanese rhythm and then it sort of goes into some prog rock epic instrumental outro, it’s quite psychedelic… but that is part of that spirit as well.
It may be a surprising range of styles, but they all exist within Sudan. It’s a huge area – before the separation of South Sudan it was the largest country in Africa. I think there’s like 158 different tribes there, each have their own language, their own stories and their own clothes and styles and everything. So the diversity within the country is quite difficult to fathom. I spent a bit of time travelling around and we went out to the west, up to Port Sudan in the north-east, to Darfur and every place I went to you could feel there’s a different culture there. That’s part of the album, conveying that and representing that diversity in the country. It’s also surprising to hear reggae, but there’s such a huge reggae scene in Sudan as well… and you know it’s deeply spiritual and they feel connected to the land as well with their proximity to Ethiopia and there are tribes that straddle these countries.
What did the group want to bring with the multimedia elements of the project?
It was part of the original concept which was to embrace communications through the arts, you know, music used as a technology of communication with writing and visual art as other mediums. It was connecting the dots and recognising artists within different mediums who are working towards that common goal and sharing that same message of peace and hope. Also I think particularly with the writing, it really taps into more of Sudanese roots and that folkloric tradition of storytelling and preserving those stories and that sense of identity in Sudan which they’ve been grappling with not just the last four but the last 40 years.
In terms of putting together the final project how did the collective decide how to bring the three elements, the music, art and writing together?
It was all very intentional they’re directly connected. So the artwork there were four artists and they did two pieces each, commissions specifically inspired by each piece of music. They had a series of workshops where they were playing the music and the artists were all in the same space, literally working on it, listening to the music. So there’s a direct connection. It’s the same, I believe, with the stories. The writers were all given the music. Some of the pieces are original writings and some are folkloric retellings of stories. It was down to each writer, however they felt inspired to respond to the music.
What’s next for the project as a whole?
Well the next thing for me is to finish producing the book I want to publish with the writings and art work in it, which is proving to be quite a feat with so much content to pull together. I also want to shine a light on all of the artists and contributors that were involved so there’s going to be biographies of everybody. I’ve lost count but maybe there’s around 30 people to include. Then beyond that I’m still working with these guys in different capacities. Since October, when the war broke out again, they’ve fled to Egypt and just last week I heard from Salma that they’re now in the Emirates.
It’s a really difficult time for them to be able to sort out the project and look forwards, but they have got a new music studio there so hopefully they’ll be some new creations coming soon. They’ve been doing performances as well. Before the war they did a series of really cool gigs and it’s amazing because it’s such a big collaboration with all the musicians. I think when it comes to performing they can be kind of modular. So they invite different people who are around to come and join, they can play with local musicians, they can shift the format to work and hopefully they’ll be able to continue doing that where they are now and still be able to perform it out there.
You had been thinking of some sort of launch event in terms of a listening event at The Rose Hill, is that still likely?
That was postponed due to their circumstances so we’ll let things settle a little bit then we’ll have them over here for a residency or something. It’s difficult to get visas but I’m looking into that. I’ve worked with the British Council in the past and I’m putting together a proposal to try and do some sort of residency projects with them.
Ahmed Homaida & Salma Omar
If you can just take a step back from this latest project and tell us about the Jinn Records beginnings and your connections with Rose Hill…
So Jinn records actually began in 2016 with the Sudanese artist MaMan who actually I had been working with for a number of years. He came over to the UK for a couple of weeks and we worked on a project with me as a producer. It felt like it would be good to have a platform to release that music so I set up Jinn Records with my brother. The idea was for it to be a platform for young artists that I found inspiring and I was working with in one the capacity or another. Then it sort of took a bit of a hiatus for a number of years because in 2016 Kas, Jules and me opened The Rose Hill which obviously needed a lot of energy just to get the cogs moving.
All my energy went into The Rose Hill, I relocated my studio there from Elm Grove in 2017, but once that all got into its rhythm and we had built up a really good reputation, I sort of came back to the idea of Jinn Records. In 2021, I met a Ghanaian artist called Atongo Zimba who was making some amazing music and we produced this album together – called ‘A To Z’ in October 2021, which was the first label release in four years. Currently I have several projects lined up to release; collaborations with an artist from South Africa, Pilani Bubu, and there’s also a poet that I met in Ghana called Poetivist who has written a great collection of poems which I’m soundtracking and I’m gonna release that as well. There’s also so many other little things bubbling under the radar.
Sounds like there’s a lot more coming up from the Jinn imprint then?
My long-term vision records is more global… when all those African collaborations started surfacing and I sort of sat back and went all right so I’m a pan-African label now. I kind of thought that’s a really nice way for me to build a kind of foundation for the label that can then grow into being more global. So my heritage is in North Africa and so there’s some Arabic artists that I’m really keen to work with as well through my connections and I think that will be sort of, you know, the mid-term plan.
You mentioned that you recently ended up in South Africa doing a concert that was linked to a Rose Hill Residency…
The artist was Pilani Bubu. I met her at Portugal Womex and then invited her to come to do a residency here. So she came over in October 2022 and we spent a couple of weeks sketching out a new album, it’s part of her series which is called ‘Folklore’. The Folklore festival is her brainchild and this year was its second year. We did our debut performance of the project that we’re working on with a band there and also with a choir, The Windy Brow Theatre choir, young kids sort of aged I think 9 to 12. It was such a beautiful thing working with the kids and also just spending time with the locals and the musicians there, for me to absorb really what the spirit of this project is. As a British producer on a very South African project there’s a lot of learning for me to do…
How the how did the performance go?
It went off – people were saying it was the highlight of the festival… it was incredible the audience just lost it! So the album is based on the concept of children’s songs, classic South African children’s songs and the idea of play and bringing it into the adult play world which is club music. So it’s a dance music album. It got such a reaction from the audience you know because they knew the songs. The whole audience opened up into a circle, they were dancing doing the moves, all singing along…
You’ve got lots of different roles, do you find it difficult to juggle them or is it quite easy for you?
That’s a good question because I do have a lot of hats. I go through waves sometimes of thinking ‘oh my god this is too much I need to just stop saying yes’ but it just flows naturally because everything that I do is in the realm of music so it’s all connected and kind of feeds into one another. So running The Rose Hill has been fantastic and given me access to have different things going on everyday and the inspiration that I get from listening to you know some really far out leftfield experimental music to free jazz to the world music to songwriters, you know that all forms part of my make up that all goes into everything that I do, even in the studio. The part of it that doesn’t quite fit into the cycle is the admin… when you come to running a record label there’s loads of admin. Filling out spreadsheets and metadata… But I feel so blessed and privileged to be in the field of music because of the power it holds, because you know it’s just such a wonderful thing. In good times and bad times music is there and it keeps us breathing, it’s the soul of our society… it’s everything.
Listen to more of the ‘Sawa Sawa’ album here
Read more about the project and Jinn Records here
Find out what’s coming up at The Rose Hill here
