Gaidaa – Morning Blue
On her COLORS performance, Dutch-Sudanese singer Gaidaa shares an insightful and poetic rendition of ‘Morning Blue’, a song that is dedicated to Sudan and is taken from her forthcoming EP. Over the tranquil instrumentation, Gaidaa alternates between singing in English and Arabic, the latter of which features a gorgeous line about “Saba7 Elkhair”, which translates to “morning of well being”. The title of the song is also a reference to the #BlueForSudan campaign, encouraging users to change their profile pictures to blue to stand with Sudan and to honour the memory of one of the victims of the protests: Mohamed Mattar, whose favourite colour was a shade of steel blue.
Although the song touches on the hardships and darkness that the people of Sudan have faced over the years, there’s an element of hope that permeates throughout the song, a sense of power and change. This is translated into Gaidaa’s choice of clothing for the session, where she wears a traditional white tobe with gold earrings, mirroring the iconic viral photo captured by Lana Haroun of a woman giving hope at a Khartoum demonstration. Women have been at the frontline of Sudan’s uprising and have been referred to as “Kandakas” by male protestors, the name of the Nubian Queens who led troops to fight and defend ancient Sudan.