Sudan Archives

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Violinist and singer Sudan Archives, our guest this week, recently released her third full length album. BPM is a punchy, layered dance album filled with homages to Chicago house and Detroit Techno. We had a chance to talk with Sudan back in 2022 when she released her record Natural Brown Prom Queen. She spoke with us about the album, her concerts, and her favorite fellow fiddle players.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mone, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
0:11.5	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:33.5	It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorne.
0:35.2	Sudan Archives.
0:54.6	She has been making music all of her life. She grew up in Ohio, where she played violin in church and school bands. Her dad was a label guy. He tried to make a pop duo out of Sudan and her twin sister, but it didn't take. Sudan needed to do her own thing to be an artist in her own right. So when she got her high school diploma, she headed to Los Angeles. She started hanging out at a club called Low End Theory,
1:00.2	home to beatmakers, Flying Lotus, Datalus, and no such thing. It was there that she found
1:06.1	her voice as an artist. Sudan Archives is a violinist who, well, breaks new ground with what a violin
1:14.4	can do in popular music. She isn't just a violinist. It's only one of the colors that she
1:19.6	uses to paint one arrow in her quiver. When she combines that violin with her voice, her beat
1:25.7	making, and her songwriting, her music is mesmerizing. That's not for sale. This is my life. Don't mix that up. This is my light.
1:46.0	Don't block the sun.
1:47.0	This is my sweet can't you tell.
1:50.0	That's not for sale.
1:52.0	Sudan Archives' breakthrough single
1:55.0	offered 2018 EP Sync.
1:57.0	When I talked with her in 2022, she had just released Natural Brown Prom Queen. She recorded it at
2:04.0	home during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it sounds like it. Close, interior, heading.
2:13.7	If I got my hair, hope I in Back long Back time like way before
2:18.2	If I wear it straight
2:19.5	Would they like me more
2:20.6	Like those girls
2:21.8	On front couples
	...

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