Sudan Archives: Redefining the Violin

     The first time I heard a song by Sudan Archives was last year in my dorm when my roommate played “Nont for Sale” while we were studying. I was immediately captivated and curious as it sounded like no other music I’d heard before, consisting of an R&B flow/beat but also featuring violin at the same time. I started diving deeper into her discography and loved so many of her songs as they are so unique and unlike anything I had heard before. 

Brittney Parks first started experimenting with playing violin over self created loops whenever she had time between jobs and would upload them to SoundCloud, not taking it too seriously. She began making music under the name Sudan Moon, but after moving to LA went by Sudan Archives, as she is known today. In an interview she recalls her introduction to electronic African music through picking up a vinyl of Francis Bebey and loving the music. She dove deeper into this, reading and researching West African fiddle music, pushing her to keep producing and playing violin while blending it like Bebey did. When she was younger, she picked up violin by ear in church but was not interested as much as playing it in a “classical” way, so when she found West African fiddle music it inspired her to play her own way, not as an accompaniment but the star of the song, sometimes aggressive and other times soft. 

In an interview with Brittney, she described how she comes up with her music. She said she usually starts off with a melody in her head, and runs to her violin to record that part of the song. From there she uses loop stations and other music software applications to capture her melody and how she wants it to sound. She doesn't think in terms of “classical violin” or “pop violin” but rather plays how she feels while interconnecting both electronic and West African fiddle music in her own creative way. She describes her music as a cultural fusion, drawing from classical composition, Sudanese fiddling, Irish folk, and trap beats. She is not afraid to break barriers in her music, and is an incredibly creative and innovative musician. 

While Brittney Parks and Jennifer Doudna are creatives in very differing fields, they still share some similarities in their creative processes. They both went into fields wanting to create something new and never done before, for Brittney that was to use violin in a way that was not classical, and for Jennifer that was to create an accessible way to read and rewrite DNA. They challenged the limits of their fields, bringing these new ideas in and experimenting until they were satisfied with what they created. They both relied on experimentation for their work, for Brittney that was through trials of making different beats and layering it with violin, and for Jennifer that was working in the lab and conducting research that each time got her closer to discovering CRISPR. They are both incredible creatives, questioning what music could sound like and what science could look like through their innovative lenses.