The Messenger

by Heijan (Turkish original – Bağcılar, Turkey)
by David Selim Sayers and Evrim Emir-Sayers (English translation – Paris, France)

THIS translation is of the song “Elçi” by the Kurdish-Turkish rapper Heijan (b. 1994). You can hear it performed by Heijan himself at this link.

I shouldered my longing and walked
Everything I left behind
My past, full of illegal binds
About which I just cannot talk

Their biases, they wore me out
My wrists felt the grip of their cuffs
My woes I told no one about
As I stood before court, sleepless and rough

They wanted me to shut up
As the murders kept piling up
They told me to simply look on
They deserve every word I pile on

And I?
I could have been someone illegal
Carried that gun like an angel of death
Wasted them all without wasting a word
Ten years in the hole without drawing a breath

Raised in the ghetto with blood on my hands
Kids walk behind me, my life in my hands
Walk down this path full of hope, take a stand!
There is a way, there is a plan

They can’t understand
They can’t know us, from where we came
They can’t know whom we touched with our flame
From whom we ignited and whom we inflamed

So tell us your tale and don’t worry
The games that they play can’t deter me
If I need to be dead, let them shoot me
Even a bullet in the head can’t mute me

I see them piling up at my gate
There’s no way to outrun their gaze
Their eyes full of scorn and hate
Their bias that I still can’t break

I walk round the borough in silence
For no reason, the cops fall upon me
As they search me, I can feel their violence
They only care about what I have on me

Talk about all that your eyes see
The wheelings and dealings about
Or just shut your eyes and get out
After all, isn’t all as it should be?

Their biases cut me like knives
All of my values I’ve lost
As poverty squeezed out my life
I never counted the cost

The problem? My borough, my everything
It made me and I wrote its creed
I never bowed down to anyone, get it?
I’m a messenger roaming the streets

The problem? My borough, my everything
It made me and I wrote its creed
I never bowed down to anyone, get it?
I’m a messenger roaming the streets

This is my life, my path, barbed wire to all my sides
When no one’s around, tears fill my eyes while everybody smiles