Sudan Turned a Gut Feeling Into a Sound You Can’t Ignore

Over a decade ago, Sudan’s mom refused to let him join a cricket club and bought him a guitar instead. He bailed on formal lessons almost immediately (“I don’t like learning under a curriculum”), but the instrument stuck. Soon, he was crashing his friends’ home studios, layering guitars for hours, experimenting with gear he didn’t own. “It’s been ten years since I first got into production,” he says now, “and I don’t think I’ve gone more than three days without opening a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) since.”

That kind of tunnel vision would eventually shape the foundations of a quiet creative empire. Before Sudan ever called himself an artist, he was producing for others, building sounds for a growing list of independent names. And then came a moment—random, afternoon, solo kind of moment—when he asked himself: why not me? “I had this epiphany,” he says. “What is stopping me from making an album for myself? I have all the resources, I should just take the plunge.” And so he did. Sort of. “I announced ‘this is the year for a Sudan album’ to my 250 followers in 2022. The album did not come out that year. Neither did it come out the next year,” he laughs. “But it gave me purpose.”

That record, Sudan?, would arrive like a slow explosion—a dense, detail-packed debut that doesn’t ask for attention as much as it dares you to sit still and listen. Fred again.. and Jon Bellion comparisons started to crop up. Sudan gets it: he performs with a sampler like Fred; his ethos mirrors Bellion’s. But the sound is unmistakably his own. “My sound is nothing but my intuition,” he says. “I trust my gut more than I trust anyone’s opinion. That’s kind of the point of me having a job where the fundamentals are based on expression and not validation.”

Validation is the last thing on his mind: His music isn’t chasing the algorithm—it’s driven by moments that demand patience: instrumental bridges, layered transitions, ambient textures that take their time. A song like “Honest” unfolds without any concern for convention. “Will it be appealing to a generation that wants the first line of any song to be a hook?” he asks, then shrugs. “I don’t know. But I can’t let that thought process come in the way when I’m creating.”

Live, though, things change: Sudan loves the challenge of reinventing his work for stage. “I don’t bring any music to my band until it’s pretty much done,” he says. “There’s a lot of merit in me composing drums not like a drummer would, or pianos not like a pianist would. And then re-looking at the arrangements to better contextualize it for the live setting.”

His album launch at antiSOCIAL in Mumbai was proof of how far that philosophy can take you. “I didn’t have a lot of expectations,” he admits. “But to have received the kind of love we did is the stuff of dreams.” The room was packed with people who already knew every note, his family was in the crowd, his closest friends were guesting onstage. “If I was to ask for the perfect debut show, I would’ve asked for less than what I got.”

The spotlight is on: But even with the attention growing, he’s not interested in playing the game. “The absence of desire to be a big or successful artist,” he says, grinning, “is the part people don’t understand.” He’s happy doing cool things, pushing boundaries, and helping shape the identity of the next wave. “If a Grammy comes along the way of me having fun, then sure, nothing like it. But I’m just as happy about myself as an artist either way.”

Feelings over trends: Sudan doesn’t really care what’s trending. He doesn’t spend his time chasing playlists or comparing data. He does, however, care deeply about what music can make people feel. “I try to dig slightly deeper than the surface level of an idea—either lyrically or sonically—and I almost demand that out of anyone who’s listening to the music as well.” That’s why AI doesn’t excite him much. That’s why he’s thinking more about philosophy than virality.

Ask him about the future and he won’t give you a hot take—just quiet confidence. “A lot of music that’s going to be pushing boundaries in the near future will have been exported from my laptop.” He’s probably right.