Sudan Roots is performing around art spaces in Egypt

CAIRO- 7 August 2017: 'Sudan Roots', a Sudanese reggae band, are touring across Cairo’s underground cultural and art hubs to share their Sudanese inspired reggae beats across the border. Founded in 2011, the band started out as a tribute for reggae advocates such as Bob Marley, The Marley Brothers, and Groundation.

“We thought that if we keep copying Bob Marley all the time, we were not going to do our own thing. So we decided to set aside our tribute to Marley and compose some originals to make an album,” lead singer Tarig Gaidou, originally Tarig Adam, shared.
“We started out doing covers because we had to gain an audience and get our name out there,”

Khartoum based group started out as back up musicians for Moawia Ahmed Khalid also known as Nile, a Sudanese musician who gained popularity for being a finalist at ‘The Voice Ahla Sawt’, and performed at various cultural events at embassies in Khartoum.

“After we decided to take the steps of establishing our own path, we came to Cairo with the intention of making an album,” Gaidou continued. The album, expected to be released in October, will reflect the core identity of Sudan Roots as a collective band and pave the way for a potential world tour.

Their first step into the music world was by producing the song ‘Reggae Music’ that is featured on iTunes. Along with their current projects, Sudan Roots releases a song on their official SoundCloud page every Wednesday to stay engaged with their audiences.



Sudan Roots kick started their Cairo tour on August 4 with a live show at 3elbt Alwan where they performed some of their originals that got the audience on their feet. They are planning to perform in DA HOUSE on August 10 and Room Art Space on August 12.

Sudan Roots utilize the platform of their reggae music to send subtle messages that include cultural criticism that people could relate to.

“Reggae music is the music of messages. If you want to send a message you play it with reggae music because the audience will grasp the message quickly,” Gaidou explained.

The increasing popularity of the group, like many other Sudanese artists and musicians these days are a byproduct of rising art and music scene in Khartoum. Following the footsteps of other musicians, Sudan Roots choose to perform their songs in English.

However they found that their older audience was not very satisfied with their music because “Many older people don’t understand our music and think that we are westernized, but on the contrary, we are trying to reflect the vast cultures that have influenced our musical journey,” Gaidou clarified,” The majority of our audience are young people who enjoy western music so incorporating that with our traditional east African music makes us interesting’’

Sudan Roots are very keen to appeal to their audience while still keeping their identity to stand out amongst other musicians. To achieve this Gaidou highlighted “we are writing songs in different Arabic dialects such as the Egyptian dialect so that when we perform here [in Cairo], we can sing that song and make our audience feel special.”