Search - Rodney Crowell :: Setona, Queen of Henna

Having served customers like Prince (The-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince) and other celebrities who made special trips to Cairo/Egypt in order to be decorated by her one can say that without any doubt Setona is the best-known and most internationally marketed henna artist today. That has not always been that easy as the first years after she arrived together with her husband Ahmed - a former teacher now acting as a lute player in her band - from the Sudanese capital Khartoum in Cairo in the late 80's she had to struggle hard. But her many artistic talents helped her to step from the status being just another stranger from a different country to international acknowledgment. More than a decade later there is good reason to credit Setona with the revival of traditional henna painting in Egypt. "What distinguishes Setona is her ability to market herself as a wedding consultant for 'Sudanese retrostyle' ceremonies, where she starts by applying the henna designs on the bride and teaching the women Sudanese dances, and ends with singing traditional songs during the ceremony itself. In other words, Setona draws on her knowledge of an entire set of traditions associated with body care and body painting in the context of Sudanese wedding rites" (Salah M. Hassan, The art of African fashion, 1998). But besides all her first profession Setona is still as a singer both on traditional weddings as well as on international stages. Having started as a singer accompanied by only a frame drum whose skin was often henna decorated Setona nowadays fronts a kind of a fourteen member big band, consisting of keyboard, guitar, bass, percussion, brass section and a backing choir. "People need me for both, the wedding ceremonies and the music," she says. Lately, Setona has taken her talents to the stage. She has performed with the avant-garde Egyptian theatrical group El Tali'aa, both in Cairo and abroad. And she has played with great success in some of the most successful Egyptian movies during the recent years like "An Upper Egyptian In The American University" where she played herself and sang "Henna", a song also contained in this album. "Hello America" starring Adel Emam, one of the leading Egyptian actors, gave her the chance of acting as a black femme fatale living in New York who is chasing her husband, an Egyptian immigrant seeking for legal status. The basic tracks of this album have been recorded in England in Spring 2000. Having finished successfully a tour everybody of the ensemble African Crossroads felt inspired to enter a studio and record a bunch of new songs, many of them written by Setona's husband Ahmed. Once again Setona draws from her rich knowledge of pan African musical traditions. "My aim was," says arranger and producer Bibi Hammond, "to add to those many influences with in Setona's and Ahmed's songs some more from West African music traditions. As you know I come from Ghana, and some of our traditions fit in perfectly." His superb work created 13 pan African highlights that make Setona and her work in a way unique among contemporary African artists. So Setona is not only a singer with a magic voice; multi talented she is an actress, both on stage and on the screen, an entrepreneur of her henna business and above all - she is an ambassadress who keeps her African traditions alive in a modern rapidly changing world.