Thursday November 13, 2025 | 5-8pm
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
Free to attend | No registration required
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve
TLM teams up with Movement, a local “musical discovery platform” highlighting immigrant musicians, to present a special musical encounter between master musicians for 2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley. Sudanese vocalist and practitioner of aghaani banaat Salma Al Assal leads the November 13 performance.
Tenderloin Museum continues the 2025-2026 season of “Sounds of the Tenderloin” programs with another “2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley in collaboration with the TLCBD. This month, TLM highlights the contributions of immigrant musicians and the connections forged by musical collaborations with a concert organized with Movement. The local “musical discovery platform” founded by Ethiopian-American artist Meklit Hadero includes both live concerts and a podcast–nationally syndicated on radio via PRX–featuring interviews with immigrant musicians.
Our November program features Salma Al Assal, a renowned Sudanese vocalist who specializes in aghaani banaat–a repertoire of party music performed by women for weddings and other celebrations. Al Assal–whose name translates to “Sweet Honey Salma”--fuses traditional Sudanese sounds with reggae and American soul to create a rousing, original style sure to bring joy to the streets of the TL! The Tenderloin has been home to a large and multitudinous diaspora from the Arab world going back to the 1960s, and at present sports the only explicitly Sudanese restaurant in the Bay Area (Z Zoul). TLM is thrilled to bring a star of the Arab music scene for a free, outdoor concert for the Tenderloin community. Al Assal will be joined by a special musical collaborator from a different musical tradition, TBA.
Free, outdoor, music-centric happenings at a once notorious Tenderloin alley began in 2022 through a collaboration between TLM, the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, and longtime residents of the alley. These events were some of the first “Sounds of the Tenderloin” programs, a series of events “animating the TL’s under-sung cultural history through live music” that began with a grant from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, continued with more support from the State of CA’s Museum Grant Program, and now exists as a monthly block party at Dodge Place. Since those initial shows, the alley has benefited from substantial community investment, including a Community Challenge Grant project that brought two stunning murals to the alley and an ongoing grant through the TLCBD to bring monthly music to the Alley along with free food/drink vouchers to spend at adjacent businesses. TLM is thrilled to return to programming Dodge Alley and to grow the vibrancy of this amazing community space and truly urban venue.
Programmed in collaboration with the TLCBD & SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development. A limited number of vouchers for free food and drink at local businesses will be available!