Abdel Karim Karouma

Abdel Karim Karouma (Arabic: عبد الكريم كرومة, 1905 – 29 January 1947, Omdurman, Sudan), born as Abdel Karim Abdallah Mukhtar, was a prolific Sudanese singer-songwriter, mainly active in the 1920s and 30s in Omdurman, and the metropolitan area of Khartoum.

[1] Despite his relatively short life, Abdel Karim Karouma was the author of several hundred songs and was an innovative musician, creating the secular haqeeba style of Sudanese music, along with other singer-songwriters, such as Mohamed Wad Al Faki or Mohammed Ahmed Saror.

[2] Critic El Sirr A. Gadour credited Karouma as having provided "new melodies and songs (which are wholly secular).

[5] The singer here is accompanied by a chorus and percussion; and the musical as well as poetic form were still very close to devotional Madeeh performances.

Many have sung and written songs for and by each other, and that is how the art form perseveres till today.