World mourns Sudan music icon Wardi

The world music fraternity is mourning the demise of Mohamed Wardi, one of Sudan's greatest musicians and an icon of the Nubia civilisation.

Wardi was buried early Sunday at Farouk Cemetery in Khartoum, a ceremony attended by thousands of people including fans, family members and government officials.

A school teacher in Wadi Halfa, Wardi came to Khartoum for the first time in 1953 for a work-related meeting.

In 1957, he moved to Khartoum from where he pursued a music career, recording nearly 20 songs in his first year as an artiste.

His career spanned 60 years, that saw him produce over 300 original songs.

Wardi was born in July 1932 in the heart of Nubia, in a village called Sowarda close to Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan .

He began singing in the Nubian language before also doing compositions in Arabic to appeal to a larger audience.

Wardi was known for the diversity of the topics of his songs. They were about love, Sudan, Nubia, Africa, immigration, to name but a few.

His songs gained popularity in Egypt where there is a sizable Nubian community and in many African countries, especially at the Horn region. 

From the onset, his nationalistic songs were loved all over Sudan.

His words emphasised on Sudan's diversity and the Arab and African identities, and the Nubian civilisation.

Wardi integrated well-known Nubian songs into Arabic compositions and helped make the former popular all over Sudan.

He helped the Nubian minority feel part of Sudan.

Strong messages

For centuries, present-day north Sudan and southern Egypt was known as Nubia. It was the land of the Nubian people.

When colonial powers divided Nubia into two different countries, a sizable Nubian community found themselves in Sudan, a country they didn't share a language or culture with.

Slowly, the Arabic language began spreading to Nubia and a Sudanese identity was being formed as Nubians rose to political office.

Wardi was instrumental in spreading the culture and music of Nubia by integrating Nubian songs into Sudanese music and also using Nubian musical instruments such as the tamboor.

President Jaffar Numeiry imprisoned Wardi for the strong messages in his songs from 1971 to 1973, following a failed communist coup.

Wardi's only daughter, Julia, was born while he was in jail.

In 1964, his song Green October, about Sudan's first post-independence revolution against the Abboud military dictatorship, was memorised by the Sudanese public.

Today, Wardi's revolutionary songs remain powerful in Sudan.

Wardi's rare concerts were always a best-seller and audiences from different age-groups usually knew his lyrics by heart.

From 1989 to 2002, Wardi was in self-imposed exile in Cairo and California because he opposed the 1989 coup and the current government. 

Upon his return in 2002, he was greeted by thousands of fans and famously said: "I am a human being, and every human being is against dictatorship and I will continue to denounce it.”

He was a well-known supporter of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in its war against the government.

His friendship with the SPLM's former leader, Dr John Garang, was controversial and the singer performed in SPLM camps during the war.

Before South Sudan's separation, he supported unity with the south. However, he was one of the few Sudanese artistes to travel to Juba last July to celebrate South Sudan's independence.

He told journalists and supporters that one day, the south could become part of Sudan again.