‘Music knows no gender’: Sudanese female bassist defying musical stereotypes
If you telling me that I can’t do it, then I will definitely show you that I can and very, very well.”
Islam Elbeiti is one of the few female bassists from Sudan. Finding and honing this craft did not come easy in a very conservative country like Sudan. She speaks to Inspiring Open’s Betty Kankam-Boadu about defying all the odds to pursue a career in music.
Islam Elbeiti is many things. Key amongst them a bass player. Born in Khartoum, Sudan, she grew up in a couple of other places including China, the DRC and Ethiopia.
The constant move as a result of her father’s job meant she had to adapt to new cultures and readapt to her culture a lot of the time. As a child, that made her sad, having to leave her friends behind anytime they had to move to a different country. As an adult, she has come to appreciate how “enriching” is it getting access to different cultures.
Even though she is extremely proud of her Sudanese culture, Miss Elbeiti says she is most influenced by Congolese culture because she “felt so comfortable with the people and the music was just incredibly rich. It was also where I really started, let’s say, playing music and learning music.”
It was also in Kinshasa she learned to embrace and honour her Africanism.
In my culture in Sudan, a lot of times we’re brought up, and we’re being told that we’re more Arab, and we’re less African. But then I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t look like any of these Arabs… that’s where my journey into being a more of a Pan African thinking woman, I think, really started in Kinshasa,” she says
Life in Sudan has not been the easiest trying to fight the patriarchy to live freely as a woman according to Miss Elbeiti. “A lot of our traditions that were very open and very expressive of woman, womanhood, social cohesion, all somehow were killed because of this Islamic regime that took over,” she says.
As a young girl Miss Elbeiti grew up on different sounds of music
“We always had music playing, everywhere, all the time,” she says.
She received a guitar as a gift from her aunt and that began her music career. But it wasn’t an easy road. She got opposition not just from society but from her father.
“My mom has always supported what I did from the get go my dad, in the beginning, not so much, but mainly because of the work that he does, and it was quite a sensitive situation. Whereas me performing on stage and stuff would be quite a problem, actually, for him. Not for him with his views, but for the way that society would perceive him and his work,” she says.
Her father finally came on board fully after when he saw her featured-on CNN African Voices.
“Ever since then, it’s just been really incredible with them. My dad retweets all my posts of performances or he likes them. He tells his friends about it, and I think it’s just it’s just really, really nice.” Elbeiti said.
Despite her father’s acceptance she still had to contend with being a woman pursuing a music career in Sudan and a nonconformist at that.
Sudan until recently had been isolated by a number of economic sanctions over human rights abuses among others.
Elbeiti plays the bass guitar an instrument rarely played by women. She would get condescending looks anytime she walked onto the set of a gig and introduce herself as a bass player. But this is not stop her. It rather became the fuel she needed to keep going to prove she belonged in this field.
“Having had a few interactions with men, men who play music, there was always this sense that you can’t do it. This is not an instrument for women. And the kind of person that I am, this is exactly the kind of challenge I need to start doing something and being really good at it. Because if you telling me that I can’t do it, then I will definitely show you that I can and very, very well.” Elbeiti says.
Part of what kept her going was also to keep the door open for young girls. She needed to show it is possible especially for young girls in Sudanese culture to be whatever they wanted to be including charting a successful career in music. She wanted to be an example to the women in her community.
Beyond playing concerts across Africa, Elbeiti is also co-founder of the Sudanese Innovative Music Association where she teachers and supports a community of men and mostly women who want to play music.
“Any woman is always inspired by another woman who is doing something that is not normally okay for women to do. And I think also, my main influences when it came to music, were also highly women. And especially when it’s a woman from the same environment where you live and grow up, and you’re able to see that this woman is doing it and you’re like, “Okay, well, if she could do it, then so definitely, can I.”
Elbeiti wants a society where more women can “take on instruments that are seen as challenging or seen as difficult for women, because no such thing exists.”
She says music knows no gender and women who play on stage should be appreciated for how good they really are and not because they are women.
She wants the world to see the richness of Sudanese music which has been hidden because of all many economic sanctions the country was under.
“We are now at a space where we can really share and work and build on our music cultures, that there’s things that no one has ever heard before and trust me when they hear it, it’s going to be mind blowing. So, I can’t wait for that to happen.” Elbeiti says.
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