DESCRIPTION:
Track 7 'Alzara Al Hay' by Rasha, Disc Two from the double CD set compilation Reves D'Oasis Desert Blues 2 released on the Network label in 2002. Distributed by Harmonia Mundi.

Rasha comes from Omdurman, the sister city of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan in the sandy north of the country. She tells of the open, musical atmosphere in which she grew up – all her brothers and sisters and artists or journalists and many of the country's leading artists frequented her grandfather's house. As a young woman, she travelled via Cairo to Spain, where she developed her music, reflecting the diversity of traditions and rhythms in Africa's biggest country. Here, we hear a typical Sudanese reggae beat in 'Azara Al Hay' (Girls of The Quarter).

“Bahr bela ma”, ocean without water, was the name by which Arab camel drivers knew the Sahara, the world's largest desert. They travelled that ocean by camel, the ships of the desert, or as the French call their caravans, le train de sable.