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Two musicians whose lives and work have been shaped by migration and cultural memory took center stage this week on France 24's arts24 program, sitting down with host Marjorie Hache to discuss how displacement has informed their latest creative output.
Sudanese singer Sulaf appeared in the Paris studio to present her debut album, "Aba," a project she describes as a poetic journey through traditional Sudanese music reimagined with a contemporary sensibility. The record was captured in the French capital, the city where Sulaf has lived in exile since 2022, following the outbreak of conflict in her home country.
The album's title and its thematic core reflect an artist grappling with the separation from her homeland while seeking to preserve and reinterpret its musical inheritance. By weaving traditional Sudanese forms into a modern sonic framework, Sulaf positions herself among a growing generation of diasporic musicians who treat heritage not as a fixed artifact but as living material open to reinvention.
Also joining the program was Late Again, a Brooklyn-based artist whose dream pop compositions draw heavily on Tropicalia, the influential Brazilian movement that merged rock instrumentation with Brazilian and African rhythmic traditions. Late Again has just released a new EP titled "I Dreamt I Was Awake."
The Brazilian-born, New York-based musician is scheduled to perform at Supersonic in Paris on October 5, a venue that has become a fixture of the city's alternative music circuit. His appearance on arts24 coincides with that live date, giving French audiences a chance to experience the Tropicalia-inflected sound in person.
The pairing of Sulaf and Late Again on a single episode highlights a recurring theme in contemporary global music: artists whose creative identities are forged at the intersection of multiple cultures, often as a result of leaving one place and settling in another. For both musicians, uprooting has not meant erasure but rather a renegotiation of what home and heritage mean.
Sulaf's case carries particular weight given the circumstances of her departure from Sudan. Since 2022, she has resided in Paris, a city with a long history of sheltering artists and writers in exile. Her debut album represents not only a personal artistic statement but also a document of resilience, produced at a distance from the musical community and traditions that first shaped her.
The choice to record "Aba" in Paris also speaks to the practical realities facing displaced musicians, who must often rebuild their creative networks from scratch in unfamiliar environments. Studios, collaborators, and audiences all have to be found anew, and the resulting work frequently bears the imprint of that process.
Late Again's approach is different in origin but related in spirit. His embrace of Tropicalia connects him to a lineage of Brazilian artists who, beginning in the late 1960s, deliberately mixed foreign rock sounds with native and African-derived rhythms as a form of cultural assertion. That movement was itself a response to political and social upheaval, making it a natural reference point for a Brazilian artist working abroad today.
The new EP's title, "I Dreamt I Was Awake," suggests a preoccupation with blurred states of consciousness and perception, a fitting theme for dream pop as a genre. The style typically favors atmosphere, texture, and introspection over direct statement, which makes its use of Tropicalia's rhythmic foundations all the more distinctive.
Beyond the two interviews, the arts24 episode also devoted attention to a new album from Sheryl Crow, the American country pop rock star whose career has spanned decades and multiple musical phases. The inclusion of Crow alongside Sulaf and Late Again illustrates the program's broad curatorial range, spanning established international figures and emerging voices from the diaspora.
The episode was produced by a team including Marjorie Hache, Sonia Patricelli, Marion Chaval, Paul Guianvarc'h, and Solène Clausse, reflecting the collaborative nature of the weekly arts and culture broadcast.
For audiences in France and beyond, the segment offers more than a pair of album recommendations. It provides a window into how migration reshapes artistic practice, and how musicians who have been uprooted often become among the most inventive interpreters of the traditions they carry with them.
Sulaf's "Aba" stands as an example of that dynamic: a Sudanese artist in Paris, working with the sounds of home through the lens of contemporary production and her own experience of exile. Late Again's Tropicalia-infused dream pop offers a parallel case, translating a Brazilian movement for new listeners from a base in Brooklyn.
Both artists ultimately demonstrate that heritage is not something left behind when one leaves a country. It travels, transforms, and in the hands of musicians like these, finds new forms of expression in new places.
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