Sudan Archives on Taking part in Violin, Technological Liberation, and Collaboration — Polyester

Her inventive mindset and sonic aesthetic expanded when Sudan began hitting up ‘Synthesiser’, a left-field hip hop evening in Cincinnati. At 19, she left residence for LA and break up her time between raves and iconic experimental membership evening Low End Theory whereas finding out Ethnomusicology at Pasadena City College, and making music on her iPad.

“Mixing in these scenes and watching those artists, I realised I didn’t need a band. I could do this by myself.” She muses, “I bought my first electric violin, and I didn’t really have much gear, but I remember connecting it to my iPad, using this little interface and starting to build ideas on top of each other with it.”

In class, Sudan found African violinists who appeared like her and performed it so wildly. “A lot of the like singer-songwriter music is very guitar, piano, forward. But when I started to explore West Africa and East Africa, I saw that there the violin culture was very prominent, singers often play it as the lead instrument,” Sudan explains. Her distinctive sonic aesthetic and method caught the eye of Stones Throw Records, and he or she inked a deal. 

Sudan dropped her self-titled debut EP in 2017, adopted by the Sink EP in 2018. Its lead single ‘Not for Sale’ after which ‘Come Meh Way’ put Sudanese-style fiddling on the map. They blended with avant-garde R&B, a hip hop spine, digital parts and Irish jig and by 2019, her breakout LP Athena propelled Sudan on a trajectory towards world fame. Critics hailed the album as “some of the most viscerally gorgeous music put to record.”