Sudan Archives is a 24-year-old violinist with “too much swag,” as she once sang, but that proportion is serving her quite well, actually. Using little more than strings, a looper, and electronic beats and shimmer, Sudan transposes the bounce and swing of R&B and hip-hop onto a fantastically original sound that could only exist now. She has cited as an influence the late, defiant Cameroon composer and ethnomusicologist Francis Bebey, who made a similar hybrid of organic and electronic African sounds in the late 1970s and once told an interviewer, “The artistic challenge is to use the tools of Western progress and [communicate] messages of the African heritage.” Sudan steps up.
The warmth and poise of Sink, her second EP on Stones Throw, bears out her singular confluence of interests and experience—her deep psychic archive. Nearly all of its six tracks contain traces of the North African one-stringed fiddle players who inspire her, lending her work an inviting minimalism. Sudan’s voice moves between a smooth R&B breeze and the blunted real talk of subtle raps. Her lucid singing roots back to the teen pop duo she once had with her twin sister, and, at times, the celestial grooves of Sink evoke “Queen Kunta”—her brilliant 2016 cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “King Kunta.” Another of Sudan’s stated influences is the Sufi multi-instrumentalist and scholar Asim Gorashi, a world whistling champion known for interpreting Mozart with his lungs and lips. Sudan’s own approach similarly explodes conventional musical logic with a disarming ease: She rethinks the possibilities of her classical instrument, employing the same ingenuity Dorothy Ashby brought to harp and Arthur Russell to cello. She accomplishes the rare feat of honoring tradition while remaining unbeholden to genre.
| A1 | Sink |
| A2 | Nont For Sale |
| A3 | Pay Attention |
| B1 | Mind Control |
| B2 | Beautiful Mistake |
| B3 | Escape |
