Six years after his death, youth idol Mahmoud Abdelaziz remains an influential symbol of a very different Sudan

When Mahmoud Abdelaziz, one of Sudan’s most popular singers, died in Amman in January 2013, his fans mobbed the runway of Khartoum airport as his body was flown home, forcing the cancellation of flights.

Others poured out on to the city’s streets, forming one of the biggest crowds witnessed in Sudan’s recent history.

Nicknamed “Elhoot”, the singer made music that merged African traditions with western pop. He had become a potent symbol of a different Sudan: less religiously conservative, more secular and outward-looking. He was known as Sudan’s “idol of the youth”, and now those fans are taking to the streets again.

They have emerged at the forefront of the recent protests against the regime of president Omar al-Bashir demanding that he stand down.

The impetus for the involvement of Elhoot’s still loyal fans is the cultural and charitable organisation the singer set up before his death. Known as the “Moons of the Countryside”, its members have included some who were arrested and killed in the government’s crackdown.

One of those killed at a protest in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, was 25-year-old Salih Salih. Bearing pictures of the late singer, he had arrived at the gathering with two younger brothers after the group urged supporters to demonstrate instead of celebrating the anniversary of Abdelaziz’s death.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators flee as teargas is fired by riot police during an anti-government protest in Omdurman in January. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

“We’re not political at all. We even don’t understand politics,” his brother Mohanad Salih told al-Nilan website – underlining how, in a country gripped by spiralling inflation and economic hardship, the protest movement against Bashir has expanded beyond opposition groupings, hardening into more popular discontent.

His sister, Jihan Salih, said: “When my father arrived at the hospital [to fetch Salih’s body], he chanted and everyone else chanted with him, so they tear-gassed us and fired live ammunition outside the hospital.”

Despite the threat of violence and arrest, the group has said it will continue to participate in the protests, making extensive use of the secure Telegram messaging app to avoid surveillance by a government that has blocked many of the country’s social media sites.

If many supporters of Moons of the Countryside are not overtly political, the significance of Abdelaziz as a continuing icon – not least in the protests – is more nuanced, touching a younger generation in Sudan that is chafing at social restrictions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Omar al-Bashir, left, dances with Mahmoud Abdelaziz in Khartoum in April 2012. Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

Although the regime – including Bashir, who danced on stage with Abdelaziz – attempted to co-opt the singer because of his popularity, his relationship with the authorities in Khartoum was fraught. He was frequently arrested and flogged publicly for drinking alcohol.

Abdelaziz’s emergence as Sudan’s most popular singer also tracked the eruptions of Sudan’s recent history.

Born in October 1967 in Khartoum Bahri, he came to prominence as a singer at a time when his style of music was forbidden on Sudan’s national television and radio.

During the years of the war with south Sudan, however, when many singers, artists and politicians had to flee the country during increasing conservative religious intolerance, Abdelaziz stayed in Sudan and continued to perform, risking arrest.

“He told me he just dared to do it in that crazy time,” said Mohamed Wahbi, a journalist and author of the only book on Abdelaziz, The Light Thief, describing the devotion of his fanbase at that time. “They mimicked his look, his haircut and even the way he spoke. [Now] they want to see a Sudan of social justice and without [religious] public order laws.”

For many of the fans who followed him at this time, says history professor Abdullahi Ibrahim, the singer “presented a symbol of a subculture”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Young Sudanese people dance at a wedding in Khartoum. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

“Mahmoud Abdelaziz was always with people and he was outspoken about people’s issues. Many of his songs are about that,” Mohammed Babkir, head of Moons of the Countryside, told the Guardian.

'Change in people's hearts': anti-Bashir protests put Sudan at a crossroads Read more

“We can’t forget that they humiliated him publicly. They wanted him to join their party and follow their agenda. But he refused, so they punished him,” said Babkir, hours before he himself was arrested last month. He has not been heard from since.

Meanwhile, Abdelaziz’s followers have continued to join protests.

Reem Osman, 21, is a middle-class student protesting for the first time, and a member of Moons of the Countryside.

“In the past I used to just watch the protests on the TV. But now we’ve reached a very hard point, we lack basic rights in everything,” said Osman. “If our revolution does not succeed, I will leave Sudan.”