Abyad

By: Taj Al-Sir Al-Malik

Ensaf Geksa was not a football player, and she was not related to the most famous football player, Nasr Al-Din Abbas Geksa, but her fame paralleled his fame. She was famous for her boldness, beauty, arrogance, and uniqueness, for driving a red car, and for wearing short skirt.!
Khartoum has a memory, divided between tribes, some like the transparency of the water, some is turbid, and Khartoum has transformations and interpretations, it has its moods, its joy and distress, its splendor, its unrest, its storm, and its stillness. It has its lovers and its haters. It is Sudan with all its contradictions, its softness, its violence, and its surreal history. I do not mean Omdurman, or any city in the rank of Sudan. Khartoum is the city. It is Sudan, with its concerns, its neighborhoods, and its permanence. It is the paradise of Radwan and Idris in his time, cheerful at people and wraps like a judiciary, around the necks of others, full of police and cafes, not good friendliness and shadows, colored by bookstores, illustrated covers, art, and the juice of the thought of the forest and the desert.
On the roof of “Sahari Hotel”, the Blue Stars band was circling around “Malaika”, by Miriam Makeba, and Vicky Blaine. She came down from the National Theater stage, upset, and said that the Sudanese were talking loudly during her performance. There were men selling cold drinks, alerting the public of their arrival, by knocking on the necks of Fanta glasses and with the soda key, and calling Hi, “ keep cold, keep cold, keep cold, Oh you, in hot ” and the sellers of nuts shouting out gazgis, gazgis, gazgis…!
Vicky did not return to sing in Sudan again, and (Al-sit) came instead of her, and sang (This is my night), and Fahd Balan sang, on the back of the horse, we tour together, and (Al-Salahi) refrained from talking about Vicky Blain, so he returned to the house of Al-Jak, and presented the giant player of tennis (Adel Toubia), in a special episode, about rebellion, so the spark of (Afro) was kindled from that night, and the fire of “rejection” broke out, the beetle, the hippie? And people loved the song
” Without you”
And they kept it by heart.
Followed was the song
“He”
The riders went with it, and then things continued, as Edmond Mounir, Demis Roussos, and Van McCoy performed, and people knew his piece.
Do the hustle
They called it (they have just run away)… It was a nice time!
But who is Abyad?
Abyad, Sudanese man (from the people of Khartoum west), and contrary to his surname, he was black, shining black, as if he came from the Zulu tribe, with large white eyes, a thick mustache, and drooping eyelids, with eyes that held an abiding peace. You see him wearing blue jeans, walking in Al-Jamhouria street, as if he were Shaft or Alfred Williamson, so the appearance represents a cultural conquest. People had heard of jeans and Marta Della before they wore them or tasted them, and Mr. Abyad may also be the first (DJ) in Sudan. He was playing records in the Blue Nile Cafeteria, which is a hidden basement, under the Blue Nile Cinema. You hear the sound of the bass, messing with your soft feelings, coming from nowhere, and the voice of Cat Stevens, before changing his name to, Yousuf Islam, after his conversion to the Islamic religion, comes to you with complete clarity. This basement witnessed the birth of the word “discotheque” when it arrived in Sudan. The word expanded, tickling the emotions of Western music lovers, most of whom were from “Khartoum Boys.” People said that his real name was Mirghani Ismail, and that his older brother, Aziz Abyad, was a famous basketball player in Germany. An incorrect legend was spread that the eldest daughter of the crowned Queen of Disco, Donna Summer, was his daughter, but it was confirmed that he played a small role in the American film, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Abyad has Straight shoulders, not like the slouched shoulders of the Sudanese. He stays up all night in the discotheque cafeteria, which is not the Blue Nile Casino, and during the day, he works in Adhwa Stereo, transfer records to cassette tapes, according to the moods of the customers. Here I met Abyad.
The Adhwa shop, in (Marhej) building, was my favorite place to hang out. I would escape to it, when I was a student in the old days. During the days of strikes, which would break out regularly, against the Numeiri regime, I would have fun looking at the covers of records, Diana and Marvin, Temptations, Curtis Mayfiel , Wonder, Barry White, Isaac Hayes, Demis Roussos with his huge beard, the Jackson Five, Fleet Woodmac, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple.
Listen to (pieces of music), coming out of huge loud speakers, hidden in the corners with amazing design cleverness, and the place is small and elegant, designed with great taste, a humid oasis in the heat of Khartoum. You enter and find (Abyad) behind a glass barrier, covering his head, his arms crossed, what… when he saw me, he woke up from his sleep, and despite the age difference, he would talk to me, as if I were his lifelong friend…
Listen to this shocking piece, Abu Al-Surra
Barry White Standing in the shadows of love
Then he flashes a white smile, with full teeth….
He adds nonchalantly:
I swear to God, I am in a state of shock tonight, I exaggerated, but Bob Marley in his youth….
So I laugh
Then I start collecting record covers, which I would like to pick out songs on, including My Tape, Santana, Black Magic Woman.
Billy Cobham Crosswinds
Bill Withers whole album
Eddie Kendricks…
We inserted all of that into a tape we called (Selection), and two and a half pounds were paid as the value for the tape, and that was a huge sum in its time. Then everything disappeared, as if it had never existed.
I heard of the death of Abyad, on the day he stood on Mount Arafat, fasting, with his English wife and daughter.
I looked at Khartoum, where he died, on Al-Jamhouria Street, and bullets covered its tolerant face, and the Janjaweed rabble roamed its safe roads.
All that was left in it was a kind of distorted muttering, and the ruins of construction that used to stand in awe and pride.
Its roads were deserted, of those who loved it and grew up in its embrace.
Many of those who look at its faces do not know it, but the invaders have a day when they will die like flies.
Taj Al-Sir Al-Malik