Palestinian singer Adan Wakeem just turned Mashrou' Leila's canon of music into a goosebumps-inducing song about a personal experience with the Palestinian struggle. Bent 48--or daughter of 48, a reference to the mass dispossession of Palestinians in 1948--is a force to be reckoned with.
It's a seamless mashup of the indie Lebanese bands greatest melodies, with subtle modifications to the lyrics that transform the songs' meanings entirely, imbuing them a very specific and very personal political tone.
You can see here the way she combines verses from Mashrou' Leila's Bint el Khandaq with Tayf to end her song on on a poignant note that really drives it "home", pun intended.
ML's Bint el Khandaq : Why keep sowing promise in salted earth?
Ride that bike and drive us; we’ll never look back. Tomorrow we’ll return.
ML's Taif : The mushrooms have started to grow Tomorrow we inherit the earth The mushrooms have started to grow Tomorrow we inherit the earth
Adan Wakeem: The mushrooms have started to grow,
tomorrow we inherit the earth,
tomorrow we'll return.
Tomorrow' we'll return.
She sings this last verse as she wraps a Palestinian kuffiyeh around her shoulders.
Read for yourself Wakeem's skillful manoeuvring of Mashrou' Leila's lyrics in the description of the song's YouTube page.
Produced by Danish Philip Halloun, the cover combines various songs including, but not limited to, Bent al-Khandaq, Lil Watan, Tayf and Inni Mneeh .
Needless to say, Wakeem got the band's attention. Hamed Sinno, wrote a Facebook post a bout it: "this girl keeps putting me to shame."
As did the band's uber-talented violinist Haig Papazian .
Wakeem has covered Mashrou' Leila mashups before, but this newly released one takes the cake.