Some Love Songs are More Than Just Romance

Love for identity and culture has deep poetic roots in North African music. Whether it is resisting colonization, the Israeli occupation, Arab dominance, or the remnants of divide and rule, love often takes on a political dimension when artists assert their patriotism, or their mere existence, in songs. 

“The thing about music and good writing is that you need to personify emotions,” Sudanese American rapper Bas told OkayAfrica in an interview about his album Melanchronica. 

“Longing for a place is very much the same as longing for a person. Belonging, when you phrase it that way, is just more relatable to the listener. We might not all have lost a country, but we’ve all lost a loved one and the emotion at the core is the same.”

The most iconic and illustrious artist to sing about love for identity and nation is Egypt’s Umm Kulthum, the Star of the East. She is widely agreed to be the “Voice of the Arabs” and the single unifying force that connects all Arabic-speaking countries.

After rising to unparalleled fame, she joined forces with President Gamal Abdel Nasser and used her influence to further Arab nationalism and rally Egyptians in the fight against Israel. 

“Stand up and listen from deep down, for I am the people. Stay, for you are the defender of the dam to the wishes of the people. Stay, for you are what is left of the future of the people,” she sang on “Habib Al Sha’ab” (Love of the People) which was broadcasted almost every day for a month on Egyptian national radio after the defeat by Israel in the 1967 war.

In Libya, Salam Qadri also sang on national radio, using music to archive Libya’s colonial history and celebrate its cultural heritage. “We Passed the Palms and the Des” was a collaboration with poet Ahmed Al-Hariri which merged old Libyan folk poetry with contemporary words. 

The first part of the song stems from the time of forced migration under Italian occupation, with palm groves and the des being the migrants’ last sight of home, while the second part asserts “Leave a beloved if you must — But leaving your homeland is impossible.”

In the aftermath of colonialism, rule and divide policies continue to plague African nations. In Sudan, Kamal Keila, one of the key figures of Sudan’s jazz scene, sang for unity between all Africans, Muslims and Christians. By focusing on the love between people that have so long been at war with each other, Keila made brave political statements in dangerous times. Sometimes referred to as the Fela Kuti or James Brown of Sudan, Keila was the first artist to dance on stage while singing. 

The tradition of investigating Sudan’s socio-political challenges in song lives on. Not only during the 2019 December revolution’s protest chants, which got even those hooked who had never heard of Sudan before, but also in the years to come when the people would be betrayed by a military coup and the outbreak of war.

Alsarah and the Nubatones’ “Men Ana” grapples with the question of what the Sudanese people should do, and will become, after staging a successful revolution. Elmiene’s For the Deported EP is a love letter to the country of his parents and the people that became refugees. On “Promise me a rose” he sings “Hope can come in different ways / I don’t need to kiss or make love / As long as I exist in those tears.”

Defying colonial state lines altogether, the Nomadic Tuareg native to the Sahara in Libya, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali have long negotiated their ways of life through music. Tinariwen, Imarhan, and Amaka Jaji preserve the uniqueness of their cultures and navigate the political and climate-related threats to their people’s existence. 

Renowned Tuareg guitarist and singer-songwriter Bombino’s “Imajghane (The Tuareg People)” warns of the threat of Tuareg culture disappearing in our fast-changing world and calls on his people’s pride in their identity and spirit. 

To the North, Algeria’s Kabyle region is famous for its rich Amazigh culture. Kabyle music is the traditional and modern popular music of the Kabyle people of northern Algeria, primarily sung in Tamazight and telling poetic stories of love, nostalgia, exile, social life, and identity.

Malika Domrane is an Algerian Amazigh musician whose music celebrates the culture of Kabyle and especially the strength of its women and girls who she has been a strong advocate for. The title of her song “Asaru” refers to a traditional wool belt and symbolizes a connection to roots and the journey of life lived in exile. 

Morocco’s Gnawa music was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019. Fusing Moroccan Sufism with the ancestral rhythms of sub-Saharan enslaved people, the genre is a deeply spiritual profession of love and memory for identities and cultures in fusion. Often referred to as a music of healing, its rhythms and trance-like repetition allow musicians and audiences to connect with the divine. 

“Moulay Ahmed” is an essential song in the Gnawa repertoire. Blending Arabic and Bambara, a mixture of several sub-Saharan African languages that live in Morocco through the genre, the song invokes Saint Moulay Ahmed and seeks his protection in the context of displacement and slavery. 

Gnawa music is perhaps the best example of music that helps people hold on to their memory, ancestry and spirituality through joy and healing while never forgetting the ugly roots that prompted the need for this resistance in the first place.