Emmanuel Jal & Abdel Gadir Salim - Ceasefire

Ceasefire is an album whose backstory threatens to overshadow its music. Emmanuel Jal and Abdel Gadir Salim have spent most of their lives less than a thousand miles from each other, but they may as well have been on different planets, as they fell on different sides of the front line in Sudan's long and brutal north-south civil war (a separate conflict from the current troubles in Darfur). The war pitted the Muslim, Arab, and comparatively wealthy north against the south, where most are adherents of indigenous faiths, along with a sizable Christian minority. Salim is an elder statesman of northern Sudanese music and a master oud player, while Jal was forced into duty with John Garang's rebel SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) group before he turned eight, training in Ethiopian camps and fighting skirmish actions before he learned to read. A fine album!