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 Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي (Re: الطيب الشيخ)
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Abdelkarim Elkabli, venerated Sudanese performer, dies at 89
His music embodied the hopes of many ordinary Sudanese in their struggle for progress and national identity
Sudanese musician Abdelkarim Elkabli performed solo with an oud or backed by a big-band orchestra. (Courtesy of Elkabli family and DAL Cultural Forum)
By Isma'il Kushkush
December 16, 2021 at 2:57 p.m. EST
Abdelkarim Elkabli, a Sudanese singer, songwriter and composer whose music — an exuberant marriage of modern and traditional sounds — embodied the hopes of many ordinary Sudanese in their struggle for progress and national identity, died Dec. 2 at a hospital in Flint, Mich. He was 89 and lived with family in Alexandria, Va.
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The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his son Saad Alkabli, who transliterates his surname differently.
His death was mourned by top Sudanese social and political figures including Sudan’s civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, who described Mr. Elkabli in a tweet as “a symbol of Sudanese art, a large literary monument who engraved his name in the consciousness of our people with letters of light.”
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Reflecting Sudan’s far-ranging musical heritage, Mr. Elkabli performed solo with an oud (a lute) or backed by a big-band orchestra, and his songs addressed love, folk song themes of heroism and chivalry, and politics.
His recordings encompassed songs in colloquial Sudanese and classical Arabic and works written by contemporary and historical poets. He sang and composed in a manner and language appealing to contemporary urban listeners and sensibilities. And he performed in the five-note pentatonic scale common to sub-Saharan Africa — a sound that distinguishes Sudanese music from the seven-note heptatonic scale more common to the Middle East and North Africa.
A promising young musician, Mr. Elkabli completed his education in Omdurman, a major city near Khartoum and the center of nationalist and cultural movements. He worked as a court clerk but retained his literary and musical interests while building a reputation as a poet, intellectual and artist. He initially performed privately among friends but soon began to write and compose for well-known singers. In the 1950s on Radio Omdurman, the country’s main radio station, he served on a literary and musical evaluation committee when singers and musicians performed live sessions for broadcast.
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His major break came in 1960, when he was asked to perform in front of the visiting Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. At the height of anti-colonial fever in the region, Mr. Elkabli sang one of his most celebrated pieces, “The Asia and Africa Song.” It was written by a fellow poet to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Bandung conference seeking solidarity and cooperation among newly independent nations of Africa and Asia. Mr. Elkabli had composed its melody and delivered it with timely references to independence leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi of India and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya as well as the Algerian revolution, and it also celebrated Sudan’s historical ties with Egypt.
“It was the first time he performed in front of a [public] audience — in front of Nasser,” said Omer Elgozali, a longtime Sudan Television presenter as well as his brother-in-law. “His performance echoed widely.”
Mr. Elkabli circa 2014. (Elshafei Dafalla)
Mr. Elkabli never belonged to a political party, but he marked important political developments in song. His piece “In the University’s Path” honored Sudan’s 1964 student-led October Revolution, the first nonviolent popular uprising in the region to successfully topple a military dictatorship.
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But Mr. Elkabli’s greatest popularity derived from his many songs that elegantly celebrated love, beauty and nature. They include “Habibat Umri” (“The Love of My Life”) and “Zaman al-Nas” (“People Used To”) and the lighthearted upbeat hit “Sukkar Sukkar” (“Sugar Sugar”), inspired by the 1960s American dance craze the Twist. He also composed music to accompany a 10th-century classical Arabic poem, “Arak ‘Assi al-Dam’ ” (“I See You Holding Back Tears”), sang about the ancient city of Marawi in northern Sudan along the Nile River, and paid homage to Darfur’s picturesque environment with “Mursal Shog (Jebel Marra)” (“Message of Longing (Mount Marra)”).
In his music, Mr. Elkabli advocated for women’s rights in “Fatat al-Yom wa al-Ghad” (“The Woman of Today and Tomorrow”) and children’s rights during times of war in “Limaza؟” (“Why؟”). In 2004 he was named a United Nations Population Fund goodwill ambassador, joining grass-roots peace efforts in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. He settled in the Washington area in 2012, arriving on a visa offered to individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement.
“Elkabli will not only be remembered for his great role in developing the modern Sudanese song but also for his significant role in preserving the heritage of Sudanese music and culture in his own unique style,” said Souad Ali, an associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arizona.
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The eldest of three siblings, Abdelkarim Abdelaziz Elkabli was born in the eastern Sudanese town of Port Sudan on the Red Sea on April 13, 1932. His paternal grandfather migrated to Sudan during Egyptian-Ottoman rule in the early 19th century from Kabul (hence the name Elkabli, the Kabulian) and settled in the ancient port city of Suakin, where he became a merchant. Mr. Elkabli’s mother had roots in eastern Sudan and the western region of Darfur. This multiethnic and regional background would influence his outlook and music.
“The east [part of Sudan] is my region, [but I] consider all of Sudan my place,” he said in a 2019 documentary that aired on Sudanese TV.
As a child during joint Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule in Sudan in the first half of the 20th century, he first received a traditional religious education in his maternal uncle’s khalwa (Koranic school). He then continued to modern public schools, first in Port Sudan, where he showed an early interest in Arabic poetry and music after hearing the songs of contemporary Sudanese and Egyptian singers on a phonograph in a neighborhood cafe.
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He taught himself to play the penny whistle, flute and oud and sang in a boy’s school group. At 16, he continued his schooling in Omdurman.
Survivors include his wife, Awadia Elgozali; five children; two sisters; and nine grandchildren.
While tremendously popular at home and in neighboring countries, Mr. Elkabli didn’t receive the same level of global attention that producers of “world” music have given to other African and Middle Eastern singers and musical styles.
“Elkabli’s subtle playing and tremendous ability deserves wider recognition, but Western attention to Sudanese music has always been patchy at best,” said researcher Peter Verney, who included some of Mr. Elkabli’s songs in the 2005 CD compilation “The Rough Guide to the Music of Sudan.”
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Beyond performing, Mr. Elkabli lectured on Sudanese music and folklore at universities and institutions, including the Library of Congress in 2015. That same year, he co-wrote a book in English, “Melodies Not Militants: An African Artist’s Message of Hope.”
At an event in Khartoum honoring Mr. Elkabli in 2019, almost anticipating his death and expressing his spirituality, he recited from his poem “The Divine Essence”:
I look forward to meeting you my Lord
In the eagerness of a Sufi at ecstasy
My soul to Your sky precedes me
As for my mortal hands and body
Will return to Your soil as flowers and roses
A workshop of colors
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| العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
| توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 05:20 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 05:23 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 05:26 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:02 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:03 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:04 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:26 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:30 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:33 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:34 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:38 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:40 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:43 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:57 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-21-21, 06:57 PM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-22-21, 05:11 AM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-22-21, 05:14 AM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | الطيب الشيخ | 12-23-21, 05:26 AM |
| Re: توثيق لما كتب عن الكابلي | Gaafar Ismail | 12-23-21, 12:12 PM |
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