Ad-Douar by Mayssa Jallad & Fadi Tabbal

"Lebanese singer Mayssa Jallad works with Fadi Tabbal of Snakeskin on an incredible piece of experimental song. It turns out their piece is a Frankensteinian creation in which Jallad added vocals to a piece of Tabbal’s from his recent album I recognize you from my sketches. Jallad’s lyric (the title means “dizziness” in Arabic) follows a woman suffering from loss and displacement, inspired by the work of Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and photojournalist Belal Khaled in Gaza." – Peter Hollo, Utility Fog broadcast, FBi Radio

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In 1948, Hamda Jum'a, a blind Palestinian woman, was forcibly displaced from her village, Arab Al Zubayd in Safad, out of fear for her life amidst the threat of violence from Zionist militias. This fear was well-founded; occupation forces had previously killed her father's cousin and forbade his family from burying him. In her journey of displacement, Jum'a made her way to Lebanon, where she boarded a bus from Aitaroun to the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain El Helwe in Saida.

The song "Ad-Douar", which means both dizziness and roundabout in Arabic—in reference to the location of Ain El Helwe—reimagines Jum'a's bus ride, with an unknown voice offering her comfort. The music builds on Fadi Tabbal's track "You Were Right" from his 2024 album "I Recognize You from My Sketches."

Jum'a's story was documented in an oral history archive publication entitled "Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine" (ed. Diana Allan, Pluto Press, 2021). It is one of more than 750 thousand (often undocumented) accounts of Arab Palestinians who fled or were expelled in what is known as the Nakba or "catastrophe", a concept which, in legal scholar Rabea Eghbariah's words, "has evolved from a historical calamity into a brutally sophisticated structure of oppression" (Eghbariah, Columbia Law Review, 2024), an ongoing injustice we are witnessing with harrowing real-time clarity today.

Tracklist

1.	Mayssa Jallad & Fadi Tabbal - Ad-Douar	3:23

Videos

Lyrics

أُنظري الى البُعد وليس إلى القُرب
أنظري إلى البُعد وإلا اصابك الدوار

ليس المطبُّ الا مطباً
ليس أجسادَ الأحباء

إنظري إلى ازرقِ السماء
ذاك الذي لا يعرفُ الألم
ام انه يعلم نعم انه يعلم
كلَّ شيء
وسوف يغفر (يثأر) نعم يغفر (يثأر)
نعم انظري اليه

انظري مع انك لا ترَيْن
هل تشعرين بالدوار
ام أنا التي تشعر
بغثيانِ الذين
سمعوا
بالانفجار

Look far, do not look near
Look far, or the dizziness will hit you
This road-bump is only a road-bump
It is not the corpses of loved ones
Look at the blue of the sky
The one who knows no pain
Or does he know, yes he knows
Everything
And he will forgive (avenge), yes, forgive (avenge)
Yes, look at him
Look, although you do not see
Do you feel dizzy (the roundabout)?
Or is it I who feels
The nausea of those
Who have been told
About the explosion

Credits

released December 5, 2024
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Mayssa Jallad: vocals and lyrics
Fadi Tabbal: music

Includes a sample from "You were right", from Fadi Tabbal's album "I recognize you from my sketches" (May 2024).

Produced by Fadi Tabbal and Mayssa Jallad.
Mastering by Guillaume Charret - Under Roofs Mastering.

Design by Josette ‘ZOoz’ Khalil.

Photograph by Beno Rothenberg entitled "Arab women from the Palestinian village of Tantura move to Jordan under the supervision of the United Nations and the Red Cross", June 1948 (Digital ID 997008136021205171, Meitar Collection, National Library of Israel, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, Licensed under CC BY 4.0).

"Ad-Douar" was initially recorded for Heartists for Palestine's compilation "Counting the strips of light", released on July 5, 2024.
heartistsfor.bandcamp.com/album/counting-the-strips-of-light

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