This unique and one-off trio performance follows Rasha’s performance at the Festival Du Monde Arabe de Montréal earlier in the week.

Rasha Sheikh Eldine on vocals and percussion
Ernie Tollar on saxophone, flutes and ney
Waleed Abdulhamid on guitar, bass, percussion and backing vocals

Rasha emigrated to Spain in 1991 to escape the volatile political situation in her native Sudan. It was in Spain that Rasha began work on the critically acclaimed album, Sudaniyat (named by fRoots editor Ian Anderson as One of the 10 best of 1997). This album brings together the diversity of Sudanese music, ranging from Arabic poetry, sufi music and even touches of reggae. Rasha’s unique style comes from her desire to share the beauty and traditions of the diverse music from Sudan with her own contemporary twists making it accessible to everyone the world over.

In 2000 Rasha released her album ‘Let Me Be’ of which she was the sole writer, an album described in The Rough Guide to World Music (Africa & The Middle East) Volume 1 of 3, 2006 as “Stretching out to impressive effect, Rasha makes bluesy, jazzy music with a purpose and a poignant soul. The moody and compelling ‘Your Bloody Kingdom’ is bloody marvellous. Elsewhere the horns have echoes of stuttering Ethiopian funk and powerful lyrics- In English- about women’s rights.”

Through her career Rasha has also collaborated on stage and on recordings with Spain’s great Eliseo Parra, Patxi Pascual a well known musician, teacher and producer who is also in Rasha’s band, UK Jazz artist Oren Marshall, The Malarians, Jamshid Shareefi, Mastretta amongst others. She also participated in La Banda Negra album with other African artists, all based in Madrid, amongst them was Wafir, Rasha’s brother and also the late Bidinte. She also proudly participated in the Refugee Voices festival in Geneva for UNHCR’s 50th anniversary, with great artists such as Youssou N’Dour, K'naan, Geoffrey Oryema amongst others, they recorded an album in Youssou N’Dour’s studio in Dakar in 2001.

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