In the Khartoum of the early 2000s, there was a time when DJ Tilal could exclusively play 50 Cent at G-Unit-organized parties. Other nights, he’d get hired by a rival gang, perhaps Young Money, and only play Lil Wayne.
“It was dangerous to mix songs at these parties. You’d have to finish one song before you play the next one,” Tilal remembers in a conversation with OkayAfrica.
I was introduced to Tilal by filmmaker Ibrahim Snoopy, whom I recently interviewed for an article about the rise of Sudanese rap and the cost to its original identity. “Why are so many Sudanese rappers using the n-word? What’s the context?” I’d asked Snoopy.
I’ve been wondering about this phenomenon for a few years now. In 2020, my aunt from Khartoum visited Cairo. Over tea, she talked about how the situation in Khartoum was getting more unsafe, and I thought I heard her drop the n-word a few times. When I double checked, my cousin confirmed that n***** (plural) described gangs that robbed people and broke into houses. I couldn’t believe that in Sudan, the literal “Land of the Blacks,” Black people used the n-word to refer to criminals.
Fast forward to Sudanese rappers dropping the n-word left, right, and center, sometimes as the only English word in an otherwise Arabic verse, and I couldn’t tell: is it a good or a bad thing to be labeled a n**** in Sudan? And why use the extremely offensive word at all?
“Amongst rappers and other middle/upper class people in Khartoum, [the singular form] is used as ‘buddy’ and often a form of greeting,” Snoopy explains. “But in gangs [the plural] is used to describe other gangs: awlad n***** (sons of n*****). It’s not just any Black person; it’s a specific group who are affiliated with those who throw underground DJ parties in rural areas or the outskirts of Khartoum and/or assault people. No one would like to be called that.”
A hip-hop awakening
It started with Nelly, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and Jay-Z infiltrating the soundwaves of Khartoum. Ashraf Saad, aka Notorious, passed by the market after school one day and bought a new tape for his cassette player. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the music was amazing,” he remembers. “It changed my life. I started researching who they were and learned English, because I wanted to understand what they were talking about.”
Merchants at the Souq Aljanubeen (the market of the Southerners) had access to US imports and sold what was referred to as “n***** clothes” - wide t-shirts with G-Unit or other logos, Timberland boots, FUBU jeans. You’d find out when the next container would arrive and make sure not to miss the drop.
Young men identified with US rappers to the point of adopting their names and completely imitating their fashion, despite society’s disapproval. Anyone big would be called Fat Joe; others were named 50 for their style, even if they weren’t rappers. Ibrahim Snoopy’s namesake is, of course, Snoop Dogg, because he was one of the few men braiding his hair at the time.
“People were divided into two sections. Those who went to ‘elegant’ [upper-class] parties in rented places were named after individual rappers. The ones at totally underground parties were named after groups,” explains Snoopy. “They would go on ‘missions,’ crash other parties, and then brag about it in the hood.”
A US-inspired party scene
Tilal’s uncle started throwing “DJ parties” in 2004, introducing crowds to his turntable and inviting rappers and dancers to perform. Before then, people would connect a cassette player to an amplifier and have “disco parties” that would wake Tilal up as a child.
“It was a real vibe,” says Tilal about the DJ parties. “If they didn’t understand the lyrics, they’d mumble as if they were rapping, because they listened to this music so much. A guy might not speak English, but when he raps, he’s from the US.”
And then there were the “journeys.” “A journey was when a bunch of n***** put together parties with rented speakers, a DJ, and a lot of girls, to go on trips to open locations like farms or Jebel Auliya, where there's open spaces with no permission needed. They’d assemble everything with a generator, because there’s no electricity,” remembers Snoopy.
So-called “dirty parties,” where people grinded on each other or twerked, could be thrown at anyone’s house or in a rented place in the city, but they always had to be hidden from the government. “We were several brothers in our house. We’d dress up and tell each other ‘I’m going to a friend’ and then end up at the same party,” says Tilal with a laugh.
Snoopy’s favorite was “boat parties” on the Nile. “The boat would leave at 5 pm, and everyone would go to the bathroom and put their ‘cool clothes’ on. After sunset, nobody looked at us dancing on the boat away from society, because it was dark and we could easily be mistaken for a wedding party.”
If a person hadn’t been admitted to the party, they might call the police, and the partygoers would find them waiting at the dock. “The police mostly arrested girls, because their friends and boyfriends would bail them out,” says Snoopy. “They’d put all the girls on a truck and go a few meters away, then someone from our side would be sent to negotiate on behalf of everyone. That would show who’s your people and who’s not.”
Shared afterlives of enslavement
Despite what contemporary Sudanese rappers might have you believe in their lyrics, not everyone gets to be a real n**** in Khartoum. In Sudan’s deeply divided society, the people who came to adopt this term were mainly from the West or the South, descendants of tribes that have suffered centuries of abuse and slavery at the hands of the Turks, the Arabs, and their fellow lighter-skinned Sudanese.
So while it may seem random at first to look at these young men calling themselves 50, DMX, and n*****, there is a history of subjugation that is not unlike the US. More contemporarily, there is a shared experience of anti-Blackness and ostracization in one’s own society. In that way, an American rapper can feel more familiar to a kid from the outskirts of Khartoum than a Sudanese from another class or tribe.
In Khartoum, hip-hop simultaneously became an escape from people’s own lives and a world they could deeply relate to. “They downloaded the lyrics and found that these songs really expressed what they felt,” says Tilal.
In place of gun violence, gangs in Khartoum at the time had a “machete culture.” “It used to be a flex to stuff a machete in your jeans and go on a night patrol in the neighborhood,” says Snoopy. “Those would be called ‘n**** patrols.’ There were areas in Omdurman where you had to be home by 6 pm, otherwise you’d be attacked.”
This machete culture also affected the party scene. “At any moment someone could snap and start stabbing people,” he says. “If there was an event and a guy saw someone from a rival gang, suddenly there’d be a battle, and people were throwing machetes at each other.” This wouldn’t stop Tilal from thoroughly enjoying the parties; it was just a risk one had to be aware of.
Beyond gang affiliation, it was uncommon for a Northerner, someone with lighter skin and from a different community and area code, to attend any of these parties. “If you’re from the North, you have to prove yourself, and that’s hard, because we don’t trust anyone,” says Tilal.
“Tilal was one of the few who could seamlessly attend both worlds: the posh people and the n*****, whereas most other DJs were lighter-skinned and were intimidated,” says Snoopy. “Most of the DJs after 2010 did parties to show off in fancy places, but not for the sake of the music.”
Two interviews later, Snoopy has answered my question. “Most Sudanese rappers hang out in the upper-class neighborhoods and don’t know about this context,” he says. “They say n**** because they hear it in US rap.”
But if you dig deeper, there’s a relationship between Sudan’s disenfranchised “Black” youth that mirrors the experience of Black youth in many parts of the US. There’s a parallel history, a need for self-expression and escape, and most importantly, a love for hip-hop.
