Doing what a true artist does: create
Sudanese-Canadian writes song about freedom and inches a little closer to it, Lynn Saxberg writes
A summery song by a Sudanese-Canadian who immigrated to Ottawa nine years ago at the age of 16 has won the inaugural Canadian Songwriting Competition.
Hisham Abu-Nura wrote and recorded the winning track, Freedom Island, and released it under his stage name, The Free. A modern summer jam, it combines elements of reggae, hiphop and electro-pop with lyrics that conjure a tropical-island utopia, where the only responsibility is to create.
“People think it’s just a summer party song but if you listen carefully, it’s a calling-out to all artists,” Abu-Nura said, “to come join me in a place where we no longer have to deal with the world, because the only thing artists want to do is wake up and start painting or writing or making a beat. That’s what every artist wants to do: Make enough money, not so they can buy Lamborghinis or anything, just so they have the freedom to create art.”
To come up with a winner for the contest, a panel of 18 music industry professionals, ranging from Kardinal Offishall to Natalie MacMaster, spent months listening to dozens of songs in 14 musical categories. Winners and runners-up were determined in each category, and the grand prize went to Freedom Island, a win that comes with $5,000 cash and thousands more in artist-development money.
For Abu-Nura, the prize represents fuel in the gas tank.
“I invested my life into this,” he said. “As soon as we made the song, I took out all my savings, every dime I had, to put into it. It’s the scariest thing, taking your last $5,000 and you have zero, and the crazy man is looking for the rent.
“I just submitted the song for (the entry fee of ) $30, and the next thing I know I’ve got $40,000 in support. You just wake up one day, and they give you money. It makes you fall in love with the culture, makes you want to deliver. I’m in love with Canadians. There’s no hate in the streets. It allows you to perform to your maximum potential.”
Abu-Nura arrived in Ottawa nine years ago at the age of 16 to live with his brother, who was already in the nation’s capital. His childhood was divided between Sudan, where he was born, and Abu Dhabi, where his father worked for years.
Hiphop and reggae, i.e. Tupac and Bob Marley, had an early impact, along with myriad cultural influences that comes from living in a city as diverse as Abu Dhabi, where Abu-Nura heard everything from Algerian rai to Pakistani music.
Abu-Nura will use the prize money to launch a full-length album, The Vibe of the Mango, due for release June 17 on his independent label, Million Dollar Immigrant. Why salute the mango? “Everybody in the east side of the world, they get it,” he says, turning the juicy fruit into a symbol of positivity. “Kids are happy when it’s mango season. Dad comes homes with a case and it doesn’t matter what happened that day, you’ve got mangos in the house. You sit down, watch TV and suck on that mango and it’s all good.”