News Center – Sudan dominates the scene, not only because of the ongoing conflict, but also because of grave violations of women's rights. Rape, early marriage, deprivation of the right to education, and other problems profoundly affect women's lives.

In the face of this reality, an important cultural tradition carrying the voices of Sudanese women stands out, known as "girls' songs." These songs, performed by women, especially those belonging to the working class, play a role in expressing daily life, love, work, and gender-related pressures.

Through music, women express their own experiences and transcend the roles imposed on them socially, reshaping their stories with their own voices and words. Among the current representatives of this tradition is Sudanese artist and retro-pop singer Alsarah, who continues in her music to preserve this heritage.

Alsarah was born into a family of human rights defenders and was forced to flee with her family to Yemen following the 1989 coup. With the outbreak of the civil war in Yemen in 1994, she moved to the United States as a political asylum student. After studying ethnomusicology, she founded, in 2010, alongside her sister Nahid, the band "Alsarah and the Nubatones."

She is among the artists who have contributed to presenting traditional Sudanese music to an international audience, while preserving its roots instead of turning it into mere global music without context.

The two songs "Habibi Safar Minni" (My Love Traveled from Me) and "Jibal Al-Nuba" (Nuba Mountains), performed by Alsarah and Nahid, are among the works that reflect the narrative world of the "girls' songs" tradition. The two songs, performed in a cappella style without musical accompaniment, tell the story of a woman suffering from difficult financial circumstances.