Ancient Sudanese Music of Healing Threatens Egyptian Orthodoxy

From Prospect magazine:

The rango is an old Sudanese xylophone, its wooden blocks attached to curving gourds that, the musicians believe, contain the souls of the instrument's previous masters. The instrument and its music are a bridge between the visible world and the spirit world—inhabited by beings such as Yawra Bey, the sword-wielding, dandyish king of the spirits and Lady Racosha, a beautiful and mischievous child spirit. The wild call-and-response music Hassan's group are playing, especially the eerie hollow tones of the rango, is intended to heal its listeners and placate and delight the spirits. "When I play, it's like something is controlling me. I go into a trance," explains Hassan afterwards.

Rango music—along with its close cousin zar music, used in the zar ceremony of healing and exorcism—was brought to Egypt nearly 200 years ago by Sudanese slaves forced into the Egyptian army and labourers brought in to work the country's new cotton plantations.

...But Rango and zar are under threat from changing fashions, primarily from Egypt's increasing religious orthodoxy. Islamic programmes broadcast from the Gulf warn Egyptian women not to seek help for their problems at the zar—but instead to contact the satellite stations' own sheikhs.

More here. Lucky Brits.