Sudanese Songstress Sulaf and Brazilian Dream-Pop Artist Late Again Talk Displacement and Cultural Roots on France 24's arts24

Sudanese singer Sulaf has released her first full-length album, "Aba," a work that blends the sounds of traditional Sudanese music with modern production sensibilities. Recorded in Paris, the album represents a deeply personal artistic statement for an artist who has been living in exile in the French capital since 2022, following the outbreak of conflict in her homeland. Sulaf sat down with Marjorie Hache on France 24's arts24 programme this week to discuss the project, alongside Brooklyn-based Brazilian dream pop musician Late Again.

"Aba" is described as a poetic exploration of Sudan's musical heritage, reimagined through a contemporary lens. For Sulaf, the act of recording in Paris while her country remains mired in violence and instability is charged with meaning. The album serves as both a preservation effort and a creative reinvention, drawing on the rhythmic and melodic traditions of Sudan while pushing them into new sonic territory. Her exile since 2022 has clearly shaped the record's emotional landscape, with themes of distance, memory and belonging woven throughout its tracks.

The timing of the interview reflects the broader cultural moment, in which artists from conflict-affected regions are increasingly using diaspora as a vantage point for creative work. Sulaf's decision to record in Paris rather than waiting for conditions to improve in Sudan speaks to a generation of musicians who refuse to let displacement silence their output. Instead, they transform dislocation into a productive force, using the distance to examine their roots with fresh perspective and to introduce their traditions to international audiences.

Sharing the studio with Sulaf was Late Again, a Brazilian artist now based in Brooklyn, New York. His music is built around the concept of "Tropicalia," the psychedelic movement that emerged in Brazil in the late 1960s and blended rock with Brazilian and African rhythms. Tropicalia was never merely a musical genre; it was a cultural and political statement that challenged Brazil's military dictatorship and sought to connect Brazilian art with global avant-garde currents. Late Again's embrace of this tradition places him within a lineage of artists who use hybridity and experimentation as tools of both expression and resistance.

Late Again has just released a new EP titled "I Dreamt I Was Awake," a collection that continues his exploration of dreamlike textures and cross-cultural rhythms. He performed at Supersonic in Paris on October 5, bringing his live show to a French audience. The venue, known for hosting eclectic and genre-blurring acts, provides a fitting platform for an artist whose sound resists easy categorisation, sitting at the intersection of dream pop, psychedelia and Brazilian musical heritage.

The pairing of Sulaf and Late Again on the same programme highlights a shared thematic thread: both artists are engaged in a process of uprooting and reconnecting with their heritage. For Sulaf, that means carrying Sudanese traditions into exile and giving them new life in a European studio. For Late Again, it means reaching back to a specifically Brazilian movement while operating from the United States, filtering Tropicalia through the aesthetics of contemporary dream pop. Their work demonstrates how migration and distance can function as catalysts for cultural reinvention rather than as forces of erasure.

The arts24 episode also featured a segment on American country pop rock star Sheryl Crow's new album, broadening the show's musical scope beyond the two featured guests. The inclusion of Crow reflects the programme's format, which typically surveys a range of new releases and artists across genres and geographies within a single episode. This structure allows audiences to encounter Sudanese experimental music and Brazilian psychedelia alongside mainstream American pop, placing disparate traditions in dialogue with one another.

France 24's arts24 has consistently positioned itself as a platform for international music and culture, with recent episodes covering acts such as Interpol, who discussed their new album "This Mirror Weighs a Ton" and its reflections on dystopian times, and Scottish indie band The Snuts, who returned to their roots on "Joy in Short Moments." The show also recently featured Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj discussing the celebrities who have entered his colourful visual world. This editorial approach emphasises cultural exchange and the movement of artists across borders, themes that resonate strongly with Sulaf's and Late Again's respective stories.

The broader context of Sudan's ongoing crisis lends particular weight to Sulaf's work. Since 2022, the country has experienced severe instability, and its cultural institutions have been profoundly disrupted. Artists who have left Sudan often find themselves acting as informal archivists, preserving musical knowledge and practice that might otherwise be lost. Sulaf's album can be understood in this light: not simply as a debut record, but as an act of cultural stewardship, ensuring that Sudanese musical traditions remain audible and evolving even when their home context is under threat.

Similarly, Late Again's engagement with Tropicalia raises questions about how cultural movements travel and mutate. Tropicalia itself was born from a specific historical moment in Brazil, yet its influence has spread globally, adapted by artists in New York, London and beyond. When a Brazilian artist based in Brooklyn reinterprets it, the result is a layered conversation between origin and diaspora, past and present. This is not nostalgia but a living tradition, continually reshaped by those who carry it with them.

Both artists, in different ways, challenge the notion that migration results in cultural loss. Their music suggests instead that leaving home can intensify one's relationship with heritage, sharpening the desire to document, reinterpret and share it. The studio becomes a site of negotiation between memory and innovation, and the resulting work speaks to audiences far beyond the artists' original communities.

The arts24 interview format, conducted by Marjorie Hache, provides space for these conversations to unfold in depth, allowing musicians to articulate the personal and political dimensions of their work. The programme's production team includes Sonia Patricelli, Marion Chaval, Paul Guianvarc'h and Solène Clausse, whose contributions support the show's blend of performance, interview and critical commentary. The episode runs just over eleven minutes, condensing substantial artistic discussion into a compact segment.

Sulaf's debut arrives at a moment when global audiences are increasingly receptive to music from the African continent and its diaspora, though access to that music often depends on artists relocating to hubs such as Paris, London or New York. This dynamic raises uncomfortable questions about who gets to represent a culture and under what conditions. Sulaf's Paris-recorded album is both an opportunity and a reminder of the infrastructural inequalities that shape artistic production in times of conflict.

Late Again's trajectory follows a different but related path, moving from Brazil to Brooklyn and drawing on a movement that was itself a response to political repression. His EP title, "I Dreamt I Was Awake," hints at the blurred boundary between dream and reality that recurs throughout his work, a fitting motif for an artist navigating multiple cultural contexts. His appearance at Supersonic on October 5 places him within Paris's vibrant live music ecosystem, a city that has become a crossroads for displaced and itinerant musicians.

Taken together, the two artists illustrate how heritage is not a fixed inheritance but an ongoing project. Sulaf carries Sudan's musical past into a new present, while Late Again reanimates Tropicalia for a new generation and a new geography. Their willingness to discuss uprooting and reconnection openly offers listeners a way into the music that goes beyond sound alone, inviting reflection on what it means to create from a position of displacement.

The episode also serves as a reminder that cultural coverage on international broadcasters can connect audiences with artists they might never otherwise encounter. By placing Sulaf and Late Again side by side, arts24 constructs a conversation between Africa, South America, Europe and North America, showing how musical ideas circulate and transform. For viewers, the result is both an introduction to unfamiliar work and an invitation to consider the shared human experiences of migration, memory and belonging that underlie it.