The Rasta’s Song
by Nadiyah Abdullatif, translated from Sharon Paul
Ti ena enn gran prins
Ki zot finn anbarke
Depi Lafrik ziska Moris
Zot inn ranplas so kouronn
Ar lasenn dan lamin ek lipie
Linn lager kan linn arrive
Linn lager pou so liberte
To zistwar mo piti
Pou montre twa kot tonn sorti
This is the story of a great prince
Taken away by ship
From Africa to Mauritius
They snatched the crown from his head
And chained his hands and feet instead
He fought when they brought him
He fought for his freedom
Your story, little one
Will show you where you came from
Nas sang the song that told the story of the prince uprooted from the great land and sent to this small island. As he sang the prince’s tale, all those around him were wondering who he truly was. Who was able to sing like that? In the garage built from corrugated tin sheets, Nas’s voice touched and tore at the hearts. Inhabited by the prince’s spirit, Nas closed his eyes and imagined himself there. He conjured the image of the boat journey in his mind. The chains and the whips. Inside the garage, a mixture of astonishment and unease ran through his audience. Being confronted with the story in such a direct manner made them uncomfortable. With his music, Nas was bringing that story to life. But what of the others present there that evening? Sitting in a corner, Mémoire watched the Rasta bring seggae to life. The very sound that had once poured out of his own head. The music that he himself had given to the world that first time at the Saint-Sacrement Church. Now, it was abundantly clear to him: Nas must sing seggae. Nas, the man who came from the other slum, and who was among them that evening.
That slum was where Nas had grown up and where his most precious memories were chained in place. There, along each back street, behind each wall, in the midst of the small houses standing side-by-side, by the small shops with barred up windows. The memory of his father lived there too. His father and his mother. It was his father who had built the family home with his bare hands. The father who had never left the slum through which Nas had loved running ever since he was a child… He delighted in the feeling of freedom coursing through his legs, through his entire body, going up to his head. Nas felt like he had always been running or that he had always seen the people of slum running. One ran to catch the bus which never came when one actually waited for it. One chased after the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood. One raced at the sound of a firecracker, which signalled the sale of heroin in the middle of the night. Yes, the people of the slum were constantly running, and so too was Nas. He ran from school to the patch of wasteland, and from there he ran home. That patch of red earth is where, according to the sayings, this story began.
Previous generations of children had called it Baz, “The Hangout.” It was strewn with old, rusty metal sheets, broken pieces of plastic bowls, and metal headboards. Baz was where the slum-dwellers disposed of old items that were of no more use in the day-to-day life of the slum. It was where generations of children had played together. Here, one could find everything that had been left beyond the boundaries of the walls, everything that linked all of the little houses together. Yes, the lives of the inhabitants were all linked to it, whether they wanted it or not: the sound of running water from the shower, the scent of cinnamon and cloves coming from the kitchens, the music on the radio stations, the lights that went out when young women came home almost at daybreak, the smell of rum and cigarettes, the shrieks and cries from the bedrooms. Baz was, above all, the place where the musician Mémoire had heard Nas sing for the first time: Nas the singer, the son of a bricklayer and a bricklayer himself. Mémoire was curious about this man who, at around thirty years old, had such an exceptional voice, one that came from deep within his heart, from his very gut. A sharp, gravelly voice crying out to be heard. A voice that could only have been forged by the suffering of the people sent to this island. The people, men and women, who were chained to each other by their hands and feet. His voice was the kind said to come from the ancestors, those who once danced to the rhythm of sega around the fire that sets ablaze and sets free. His slender frame and gentle manner did not prepare one for the power of his voice. The voice laughed and his dreadlocks danced to its vibrations. Nas sang all the time. He sang for the slum and about the slum. He was often thinking of words that could go with a tune. It was a sort of magic to which he alone held all the secrets. His songs told of hard-working fathers, mothers in empty kitchens, and sons who left and never came back. Nas was a child of the slum. He was one of those born there who would never leave. This was where he had grown up and where he would expire to join the stars of the vast galaxy.
The day that Nas and Mémoire met for the first time was a Wednesday in July. Nas was walking past Baz and, having seen the children playing there, had started to sing to himself softly. It was a short rhyme about the innocence of children’s laughter, not yet marred by the afflictions of adulthood:
Hey little man / laugh while you still can / the time’ll come / when you’ll get up like dad and mum
“Hey, Rasta!” shouted Mémoire.
“Hey, boss,” replied Nas.
“You’re a singer?”
“Oh no. I’m just a bricklayer, not a singer.”
“But these lyrics, I’ve never heard them before. You wrote them, didn’t you?”
“No,” laughed Nas. “I just sing, like that. The words come to me. I don’t write them down.”
At these words, Mémoire went quiet. The young man standing in front of him wore an old red t-shirt and faded jeans and was telling him that lyrics just came to him, like that.
“Have you heard of seggae?” Mémoire asked, finally.
“No, I do know reggae. I know Bob Marley, the one from the Caribbean,” answered Nas.
“That’s exactly what I am talking about. A while ago, I was playing in my garage, trying my hand at a bit of everything really, and it occurred to me that our sega could be mixed with Marley’s music. That would give you seggae.”
Nas was baffled. What a surprising encounter: Jamaica and Mauritius. The Caribbean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Sega and reggae. For several minutes, the men spoke of the music from here and there. They chatted about the latest news in the slum and around the world. Mémoire had already started to develop affection towards this young bricklayer, with his undeniable talent for singing. And so, the older Rasta invited the younger one to his home and a date was set.
Nas was to go to Mémoire’s place at around 8:30 the next evening so that Mémoire could have him listen and show him what he meant. On that day, as they agreed to meet, the two men had the feeling that something important was bound to happen in that little makeshift garage. What else could they hope for? And like so many small things in life, that something was about to change the course of their lives forever: their lives as well as those of the other islanders.
ABOUT THE CREATORS
Nadiyah Abdullatif is a Mauritius-born, Scotland-based editor and translator working from Arabic, French, Mauritian Creole, and Spanish into English. Her work has appeared in Wasafiri, ArabLit Quarterly, and The Markaz Review. Her latest project, a co-translation of Yoghurt and Jam by Lena Merhej is forthcoming with Balestier Press and received a PEN Translates award. As a translator-in-residence with the National Centre for Writing, her work focused on Mauritian literature and underrepresented languages and genres. @Nadiyah_FA on Twitter.
Born in 1992 in Mauritius, Sharon Paul has a BA (Hons) in French from the Open University of Mauritius. Her début novel, Le Cantique du rasta, was awarded the Prix Indianocéanie 2021. In the same year, she was the winner of a prize organised by the Centre Culturel d’Expression Française for her piece “Nous, l’Autre et ce courant qui ne passe pas.”