Abdel Karim Karouma (, 1905 – 29 January 1947,

Omdurman Omdurman (standard ar, أم درمان ''Umm Durmān'') is a city in Sudan. It is the most populated city in the country, and thus also in the State of Khartoum. Omdurman lies on the west bank of the River Nile, opposite and northwest of the ...

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

), born as Abdel Karim Abdallah Mukhtar, was a prolific Sudanese singer-songwriter, mainly active in the 1920s and 30s in

, and the metropolitan area of

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

. He became one of the first musicians to make the Haqeeba style of Sudanese music popular.''A Brief Introduction to Haqeeba'', illustrated document and audio links by contemporary musician Sammany Hajo on the role of Haqeeba music in Sudan Msawa_nurkum_Msawa_nurkum_Karouma_record_label

Msawa_nurkum_Msawa_nurkum_Karouma_record_label

Musical career

Despite his relatively short life, Abdel Karim Karouma was the author of several hundred songs and was an innovative musician, creating the secular ''haqeeba'' style of Sudanese music, along with other singer-songwriters, such as Mohamed Wad Al Faki or Mohammed Ahmed Saror. Critic El Sirr A. Gadour credited Karouma as having provided "new melodies and songs (which are wholly secular)." A recording of his song ''Msawā nūrkum'' on a 78-rpm phonograph record from the late 1920s or 1930s, and giving an impression of early Haqeeba music, can be listened to through the Internet archive of the French National Library. The singer here is accompanied by a chorus and percussion; and the musical as well as poetic form were still very close to devotional

Madeeh Madeeh is a song-like recitation of Islamic poetry praising Allah and the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Ethnomusicologist Artur Simon described ''madeeh'' as "praise, praise poem, glorification and, in this context, praise hymn in honour of Allah an ...

performances. - Because the standard 10-inch 78 rpm record could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, the song, which in a live performance could have lasted much longer, was divided into two parts, one for each side of the record. In their ''Brief Introduction to Haqeeba'', the Sudanese cultural website Locale explains the ongoing attraction of this early style of Sudanese music like this: "Many Sudanese Haqeeba singers and songwriters overlap in work and time, they have been influenced by and have worked with one another. Many have sung and written songs for and by each other, and that is how the art form perseveres till today."

References

External links

Abdel Karim Karouma
on

discogs.com Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the l ...

Audio files – historic recording by
Abdel Karim Karouma, French National Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Karouma, Abdel Karim 20th-century Sudanese male singers 1905 births 1947 deaths People from Omdurman

Musical career

See also

References

External links