Dua Saleh’s 'Of Earth and Wires' Continues to Search for Hope Amidst the Apocalypse
In a conversation with OkayAfrica, Saleh delves into their Sudanese heritage and how it helps them use music as a tool to release grief and maintain hope.
Amuna WagnerAmunaWagnerCairo-Based North Africa Correspondent
“It's making me a better person to be honest and sincere about my feelings, because then, you know, I'm not projecting anything onto people.” - Dua Salehby Braden Lee
“Even though the world has ended for me multiple times, I still want to feel joy, bliss, and hope,” Sudanese American artist Dua Saleh tells OkayAfrica. We just started our conversation, and I’ve only asked one question, but we’re already in the thick of what it means to be alive today.
Of Earth and Wires sounds like indie, R&B, and electronic pop with flashes of Sudanese folk, UK dance, and baile funk.by Braden Lee
“Of Earth and Wires is about what home means to me as a Sudani person and as a global citizen who’s living through international crises, warfare, and environmental disasters,” says Saleh. “I was like, ‘dang, that’s really depressing. Where’s the hope in this, where’s the joy?’”
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Hope and joy ring through Saleh’s new body of work, steadily becoming louder than the grief they wrestle with. Acoustic instruments, whimsical vocal lines, and poetic vulnerability envelope moments of angst and pain; what lingers is a lightness that can hold its heavy subject matters.
Love as a guiding principle
Saleh’s critically-acclaimed debut album, I Should Call Them, follows two lovers who meet, separate, and reunite amidst an unfolding apocalypse and environmental collapse. “A lot of the time, people turn to their partners when they need to have a feeling of hope, because who else is there to provide you relief, offer you laughter, tease you, and make sure you're not taking life too seriously?” they say.
Of Earth and Wires continues to be framed within this queer relationship, mirroring Saleh’s personal dating experiences. “I'm grateful that the universe has guided me towards queer community and love, because it's shown me that the identity is resilient within me and queerness shall always prevail,” they say. “It's about the liberation of self, and that's what most of our ancestors did anyways.”
Of Earth and Wires speaks to many issues and experiences, all of which lead back to Mother Earth and family. Saleh was born in Darfur, was displaced at age 1, and later immigrated to the US. Their family has suffered immense pain and losses in Sudan’s wars and genocides, with close family members dying at the hands of systemic violence recently.
Saleh channeled these experiences into “Flood,” one of three songs with indie folk pioneer Bon Iver. “While I was in Wales filming Sex Education, it flooded a minimum of ten times, and it felt like all the endless tears that I couldn't really tap into at the time, because I was so shellshocked from losing a grandmother,” they remember.
Saleh collaborated with Bon Iver for three songs on Of Earth and Wires.by Yudo Kurita and Graham Tolbert
Music is a tool for Saleh to explore concepts of environmental and social justice and to release overwhelming emotions. “At the beginning of this album process, it was hard for me to be vulnerable, because I was so scared of the grief,” they say. “But watching [my collaborators] lean in, knowing that they're dealing with probably exactly the same thing that I'm dealing with, really pushed me to dig deeper and not be afraid of triggering a depressive episode just because I'm thinking about real life.”
On “Anemic” with fellow Sudanese diasporic artist Gaidaa, they sing “You make me feel faint/Isn’t that too remarkable/Got an iron deficiency/How horrible.”
“A lot of people in Sudan have anemia, but it also seems like Sudan is bleeding out constantly, and people are like ‘damn bro, that’s crazy…. so the Grammys gala-,” Saleh says about the song. “Nobody is actually locked in until it becomes another trend, and it’s alarming, because we’re watching genocide on a massive scale.”
The image of land overwhelmed by wires symbolizes unchecked technological proliferation, in contrast to Saleh’s warm, melodic sound on the album.by Yudo Korita
The theories behind the emotions
Saleh’s music conveys a spirituality that they practice in their daily lives. At the same time, it’s deeply grounded in a wide range of Black theories of Afro-futurisms, Afropessimism, and social justice movements like the Green Belt movement.
“I have dark-tinted glasses, but there’s a little rose in them,” they joke. “Even if I'm trying to mind my business, someone is going to clock that I actually care, and it's going to be an environmental justice baddie.”
Being Sudanese provides Saleh with a nuanced lens on global issues. While creating Of Earth and Wires, debates and paranoia about AI became more urgent. “As much as I don’t want AI to steal my art, I couldn’t take people’s conversation about it seriously,” they say. “[The real threat] is not about the art, it’s about how militaristic regimes are using it against entire nation states, bombing sacred land and life.”
And still, Saleh mentions a recent obsession with eternal life after being surrounded by so much death. This curiosity about and commitment to life and light resound through several moments on the album.
Holding space for dissonance
“[As Sudanese,] we have so much music in our bloodstreams,” says Saleh, who makes an effort to learn about their history and culture, despite the awareness that some parts of them are not always welcome in Sudanese communities.
“It’s hard to maintain community sometimes, because I’m pasting flowers to myself, pretending to be an alien or pulling up in vampire core,” they say with a laugh. “I’m just so gay, and hello, they just lifted the death penalty in 2020.”
Being openly queer and explicit in the public eye is a difficult position to occupy as a Sudanese person. Through their mother, Saleh was able to receive the maternal wisdom and indigenous knowledge that is passed down through generations while carving out the space they can occupy in the Sudanese diaspora.
“Met with such tremendous strife, empathy will always prevail,” they say. “At the core, my album is about home and showing up for one another in solidarity.”
Across eleven tracks, Saleh approaches this statement with curiosity, learning about social justice in different places around the world and connecting our relationships with family to our relationship with the earth. Ultimately, they settle on the simple thesis that love and joy can always filter through the cracks of our burning world if only we let them.
