Sudan’s beloved band Aswat Almadina keeps singing through war's devastation

Aswat Almadina was in the studio in Khartoum when Sudan’s war broke out, and the band’s story now mirrors the country’s collapse: a once-rooted musical act split across borders, still trying to hold memory together through song.

Formed in Khartoum in 2014, the band’s name translates as “Sounds of the City” or “Voices of the City.” Its sound mixed Sudanese folk influences with urban pop and jazz, and it quickly became tied to the spirit of Sudan’s 2018 revolution, which helped bring down Omar al-Bashir after 30 years in power. For many listeners, Aswat Almadina became more than a band. It was a soundtrack to upheaval, protest and the brief hope that followed.

That role has taken on new weight since fighting erupted on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. By April 2026, the war had entered its fourth year and left nearly 34 million people in Sudan in need of humanitarian support, with about 14 million displaced, including 9 million inside the country and 4.4 million across borders. More than 150,000 people have died. The United Nations has described it as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

For Aswat Almadina, the conflict scattered musicians who once worked in the same city and the same language into Cairo, Jeddah, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates. They have kept collaborating remotely, a fragile form of continuity in a country where institutions, neighborhoods and daily routines have been shattered. In that sense, the band’s music has become an archive of ordinary Sudanese life, preserving the sounds and references that war has tried to erase.

Lead vocalist Ibrahem Mahmoud has also been described as having been arrested several times in Sudan for “singing the truth.” That phrase now reads like a summary of the band’s larger role. Aswat Almadina has kept singing not just for audiences, but for a country under siege, carrying forward the memory of Khartoum and the civic culture that survived there before the war drove it apart.