Turab is the name of a Palestinian folk group whose music is traditional and yet vibrantly new. Formed in 2004 by a group of seven musicians led by Basel Zayed, their debut album was Hada Leil, produced in Al Quds in 2006. The lyrics of the songs were taken from contemporary Palestinian poems, set to music by composer, Basel Zayed.
Basel Zayed is composer, vocalist and phenomenal Oud player. The other six members of the group are: Hishem Abu Jabal on guitar, Mohamed Quttati on Accordion, Mohamed Nijem on Clarinet and Nay, Yousef Zayed on Bazouq and percussion, Tariq Rantissi on Percussion and Katie Taylor on String Bass. Now the group has produced a new album entitled 'Adam'.
The songs are amazing, drawing upon classical maqamat, international influences of reggae and jazz but still imbued with the fundamental beauty and intricacy of traditional Palestinian music.
I heard the songs on 'Adam' before I obtained the CD. When I opened the parcel containing the CD, I experienced a profound frisson of intense emotion... The CD is contained in a jacket that resembles a passport.
Mahmoud Darwish's poem, 'Passport' had a profound effect upon me as a young girl and I devoted much of my life to the cause of recognition of the Palestinian homeland as Arab and indivisable, to the rights of the refugees to return and to the concept that the apartheid, racist foreign Occupation known as 'Israel' has absolutely no legal, moral or ethical right to exist.
The words of 'Passport' came back to me as I opened the 'Passport' contained the CD of 'Adam':
'They did not recognise me in the shadows That suck away my colour in this Passport.
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist
Who loves to collect photographs.
They did not recognize me.
Ah . . . Don't leave The palm of my hand without the sun,
Because the trees recognise me,
All the songs of the rain recognise me,
Do not leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm To the door of the distant airport,
All the wheat fields,
All the prisons,
All the white tombstones,
All the barbed borders,
All the waving handkerchiefs,
All the eyes were with me,
But they dropped them from my Passport!
Stripped of my name and identity On a soil I nourished with my own hands!
Today Job cried out Filling the sky:
Don't make an example of me again!
Oh, Gentlemen, Prophets, Don't ask the trees for their names,
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is!
From my forehead bursts the sword of light,
And from my hand springs the water of the river:
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my Passport! (Mahmoud Darwish)
When this poem was written, the Palestinian Passport did not exist. The only legal identity of any Palestinian who wished to travel was a Passport given by another nation or by the foreign occupier of the Homeland. The idea of a Palestinian Passport represented the very heart of the right of the Palestinian people to recover their homeland and to be recognised by the international community.
The songs contained in 'Adam' express all of the emotions of the Palestinian people from the never-ending consciousness of betrayal to the hope that one day justice will be victorious.
Here are the lyrics of one of those songs: 'Intasar Jesh-Iddifa', written by Amer Badran: 'The Israeli Defence Forces were victorious On Flowers brave and proud, And demolished the house, the fence on the spinach plot, The lot that held it, And the widow that planted it. The Israeli Defence Forces were victorious: They won with Cobra and Merakaba, Victorious over the water connection pipe and the electricity tower. The IDF won and ruined the homeland, Taking revenge on every pavement and document: But at the end of the day, In the courage of the confrontation of a child's gaze, The IDF was defeated.'
There is no substitute for the actual music: From Hada Leil, the song 'Mahmoud': Another song:
