3lash had dunya, 3lash meskin mess3oud?

I am down to my last four days in Morocco, where I have been bloviating about the richness and potential of the form of Arabic actually spoken by most Moroccans and trying to recapture my mid-90s sense that the Internet is about to transform Moroccan society. Today's exercise is to get a draft blog out on "Mess3oud,"a remarkable short rap piece by a young Moroccan who goes by the pseudonym "3awd-lil," the "Night Horse."  The rendering of both the song title and the author's pseudonym is in transliterated darija, Moroccan colloquial Arabic, employing numbers for Arabic letters that cannot easily be approximated on a French/English keyboard: 3 for Arabic `ayn, 7 for the aspirated ha, and 9 for qaf. these conventions have developed over the last few years has millions of young Arabic-speakers have found their way to cybercafés and school computers in North Africa, Europe, and North America.

 This post will necessarily be a draft, as I cannot produce a satisfactory version of the text to be discussed either in Arabic script (I'm devoid of keyboard skills) or in transliterated form (the transliteration system I learned long ago at the University of Michigan is quite different from that improvised by today's chatters in what might be called the "darija diaspora"). Nor can I get many of the rapid and highly colloquial turns of phrase (I have this problem with American rap as well). What I will offer as a guide for the English-speaking reader is not a translation of the verses but rather an approximate text summary of the "plot" of the song. I hope, with the aid of my native-speaker colleagues (Sa`id, Hamid, this means you), to offer something better in the near future. I imagine something in the way of the three- or four-language posting with a credible version of the darija original and parallel translations in English, French, and perhaps Modern Standard Arabic.

First a word about the author/artist. Discussions on the Web of the small and powerful oeuvre (three songs to date) of "3awd-lil" (cf. "Awdellil"), the "Night Horse," either characterize him as anonymous or cite an interview in Telquel, a Francophone Moroccan weekly magazine of political and social commentary, in which he is identified only as Nourrendine, a 22 year-old Moroccan who lived in Casablanca until the age of 19 and then moved to Paris to study "informatique" (computer or information science). For the time being this June, 2004, interview, in which Awdellil (previously listed by Telquel among the "50 most influential Moroccans"!) appears to be the main source of information. Awdellil says he has no interest in celebrity or any career in commercial music production, and thathe writes his words himself and produces the music in collaboration with friends.

The Telquel article offers French translations of two of Awdellil's songs, "Raw Daw" and "Messaoud": I will paste the second of these here, followed by Google's machine-translation, in hopes of inspiring someone to do a better job. The author's performance of this four-minute piece is currently available as a podcast ("Une chanson tragique mais comique!"), and I recommend you listen to it and, if you read French or transliterated Arabic, browse some of the comments at www.mon-maroc.info/index.php?2006/01/26/51-mes3oud-3awd-lil. There's also a copy on the excellent MarocZik.com site.

French translation of "Messaoud"

Dans un village aux environs d'Ifrane, un vieillard passait sur sa mule. Attiré par des cris d'enfant, il découvrit dans les buissons un nouveau-né, bleui par le froid. Ses cris firent peur à la mule, qui se cabra. De sa patte, elle écrasa la jambe du bébé. C'est ainsi que commença l'histoire de Messaoud le maudit, l'homme que la poisse ne lâcha jamais.

Les jours passèrent, Messaoud grandit dans la cabane du vieux et sa femme, mangeant rarement à sa faim. Les catastrophes se succédèrent, jusqu'au jour du drame. Messaoud n'avait que cinq ans. C'était un lundi de fête, il s'était réveillé tout content. Voulant jouer avec un pétard, il mit le feu aux couvertures. Les deux vieux moururent dans l'incendie!

(Refrain) Pourquoi la vie en a-t-elle après Messaoud? Pourquoi toutes les portes se referment-elles sur lui? Pourquoi est-il autant marqué par la poisse? Pourquoi lui?

Messaoud atterrit dans un orphelinat à Meknès. Pendant 5 ans, il se fit casser la gueule par tous ceux qui passèrent. Son visage en conserva les traces. L'école? Il n'y comprit strictement rien. Jusqu'au jour où il en eut marre et fugua. Ce soir là, il dormit seul, dans le froid d'un terrain vague. Ali Boulahya passait par là. Il attira Messaoud derrière la décharge et hmm… jusqu'à la garde!

(Refrain)

Messaoud vécut en clochard jusqu'à ses seize ans. L'âge des fantasmes, même s'il louchait et qu'il avait le pif de travers. Complexé à l'excès, il aperçut, un jour, une bonne étendant le linge sur un balcon. Elle lui fit un signe et sourit. Le pauvre en perdit ses moyens. Chaque jour, il revint guetter sous la fenêtre. Un matin, elle descendit enfin. Ayant une course à faire, elle lui donna rendez-vous à 9 heures. Messaoud resta à l'attendre, tremblant d'excitation. À l'heure dite, il eut à peine le temps de la voir traverser… quand elle se fit écraser par un bus qui passait!

(refrain)

Messaoud, détruit, sombra dans la fume et la sniffe. Un jour, un islamiste le vit, et le conduisit à une mosquée de riches. Il lui servit à manger, lui apprit à prier et à s'exprimer. Messaoud, fier de sa nouvelle fonction, se mit à orienter les gens. Il fit le tour des mosquées, rameuta les jeunes et se fit un peu d'argent. Vint le jour où il fut appelé pour le jihad. Il prit l'avion, tout content de rencontrer Ben Laden. Arrivé au camp, on lui donna une arme et on lui dit : "Ne bouge plus d'ici, tire sur tout ce qui bouge, ta place au paradis est garantie". Messaoud se figea sur place deux jours durant. Dans un moment d'inattention, zdaou! Un Américain lui donna un coup sur la tête. À son réveil, il se retrouva en cellule, avec un Pakistanais, qui lui souriait bizarrement. Messaoud hurla de dépit : c'était à nouveau Ali Boulahya!

(Refrain)

Messaoud passa un an difficile, avec Ali Boulahya. La poisse le poursuivait tant que les Américains le renvoyèrent au Maroc. De retour au pays, chômeur et sans abri, il frôla la folie. C'est là qu'il rencontra Mhammed le violoniste. Avec lui, il fit la manche et récolta quelques pièces. Mhammed lui confia qu'il avait un plan pour "brûler" en Espagne. Messaoud fut tout content à l'idée de fuir ce pays maudit. Arrivés à la frontière avec Sebta, ils se glissèrent dans un camion de poissons. Mhammed s'en tira, Messaoud mourut frigorifié.

Pourquoi Messaoud est-il mort? Pourquoi la poisse lui collait-elle tant? Pourquoi lui?

Google machine translation of "Messaoud"
(obvious grammar mis-renderings fixed by d2, aided by WordReference.com)

In a village around Ifrane, an old man passed on his mule. Attracted by the cries of child, he discovered in the bushes a new-born baby, turned blue by the cold. Its cries frightened the mule, which bucked. With its leg, it crushed the leg of the baby. Thus commences the history of Messaoud the cursed, the man never left alone by misfortune. The days passed, and Messaoud grows up in the hut of the old man and his wife, seldom eating with his hunger. The catastrophes followed one another, until a day of tragedy. Messaoud was only five years old. It was a Monday of festival, and he had awaked very content. Wanting to play with a firecracker, he set fire to the blankets. The two old ones died in the fire!

(Refrain) Why does life go after Messaoud? Why are all the doors closed to him? Why is he marked so much by misfortune? Why him?

Messaoud lands in an orphanage in Meknès. During 5 years, he was hit in the mouth by all those who passed. His face preserved the traces of them. The school? He understood nothing at all there. Until the day when he had enough and ran off. That evening he slept alone in the cold of a waste ground. Ali Boulahya [a bearded man] passed by there. He lured Messaoud behind the dump and hmm… to the hilt!

(Refrain)

Messaoud lived as a tramp until his sixteenth year. The age of the dreams, even if he had a squint and his nose was bent. Complexed with excess, he saw, one day, a fair one hanging laundry on a balcony. She made him a sign and smiled. The poor one lost his means. Each day, he returned to watch for her under the window. One morning, she finally came down. Having an errand to run, she gave him appointment at 9. Messaoud remained to await it, trembling of excitation. At the appointed time, he had hardly time to see her crossing when she was crushed by a bus which passed!

(Refrain)

Messaoud, destroyed, sank in smoking [hashish] and sniffing [glue]. One day, an Islamist saw him, and led him to a rich person’s mosque. He gave him food to eat, taught him to beg/pray and to express himself. Messaoud, proud of his new function, started to direct people. He made the turn of the mosques, rounded up young people and made a little money. Came the day when he was called for the jihad. He took the plane, very glad to meet Bin Laden. Arrived at the camp, someone give him a weapon and another says to him: “Don’t move any more from here, fire on all that moves, your place in paradise is guaranteed.” Messaoud stays on the spot two days. In one moment of carelessness, zdaou! An American gave him a blow on the head. On waking, he was found himself in cell, with a Pakistani, who smiled to him oddly. Messaoud howled of spite: it was another Ali Boulahya!

(Refrain)

Messaoud spent a difficult year, with Ali Boulahya. Misfortune pursued him as the Americans returned him to Morocco. On returning to the country, unemployed and without shelter, he came very close to madness. It was there that he met Mhammed the violonist. With him, he made a match and reaped some denefits. Mhammed entrusted to him that he had a plan “to burn” [herraga, slang for emigrate] to Spain. Messaoud was very glad with the idea to flee this cursed country. Arrived at the border with Ceuta, they slipped into a fish truck. Mhammed drew some [?], Messaoud died refrigerated.
Why Messaoud did he die? Why does misfortune stick to him so much? Why him?

For anyone who "gets" the Moroccan Arabic lyrics -- and perhaps for anyone with an ear for the poetic resonances of the text in the cleverness of its presentation -- these "translations" are near useless. From the opening kan ma kan, mashi ba3id f-had zaman ("it happened or it didn't, not far from this time"), evoking the classic tales of the 1001 Nights, there is a constant play on the ironic sense of Messaoud's name, "Lucky." The misfortune that haunts him -- his (Oedipal?) crippling as an infant, his childhood near starvation, his physical and mental abuse in the orphanage, the sexual abuse alluded to in his repeated meetings with bearded older men, the soap-opera quality of his doomed love and his brief tenure as a holy warrior, his brief success as a Tangier street musician, and his absurd death in a fish truck trying to escape to Spain -- all this sets up the poignant refrain:

Why is the world so against Messaoud? The door at night, why does he find it closed? Why, O world, why is Messaoud so poor?

3alash ya dunya 3alash mat Messaoud?
l-bab l-lil li9a mesdoud
3alash ya dunya 3alash miskin Messaoud?

Comments

[d2]

3awd Lil's “Raw-Daw” has dubbed to a hilarious bunch of US movie clips, and I plan to use this example in a new d2 clip for Aljazeera's English channel: Imagine you’re watching a "Listening Post" program on Moroccan media, and you hear what sounds like a hip-hop rif as the reporter gets on the local train, and you google for Moroccan rap, and you find a hilarious music video dubbing 3awd Lil’s “Raw Daw” …