M. Moussa Diallo sings
We met Moussa in Lyon and he told us how he got there from Dakar
Monsieur Moussa Diallo sings.
He has been singing and he can not hide his smile while doing it. This guy also plays football and he knows how machines and cars and all sorts of those things work out. So if playing foot does not work, Moussa will always know how to fix stuff. He can still sing.
His mom is Guinean and she is beautiful. The lady has the face of a woman who has been and who is very much loved. Because she is Guinean, Moussa speaks her language. He also speaks Arabic, Malay, French, Italian and he is seventeen years old. His mother tongue is Wolof, it comes from the beautiful Senegal.
Monsieur Moussa Diallo is Senegalese.
The last time he saw his mom was four years ago. One should not ask much about this otherwise Moussa will forget he is a man and he will cry. He loves his mom. One knows that because when he speaks about her, he repeats his last sentences. As if while talking he realized his love and worship, therefore he should say it again.
When you see Monsieur Diallo smile, you can tell he is a young boy. But at first sight one does not see that. One sees a man. To be seen as a man at such an early age is not random.
When he was twelve he said to her he would go to a concert with his cousin and he has not come back ever since. The concert was then going from Dakar to Mali. And then from Mali to Algeria. Then he shared a small car with 17 other people, with some clothes in a backpack — not much, because space was a privilege, only the sufficient. For two days he crossed the maghrebian roads until reaching Tripoli.
Tripoli is the capital of Libya. There Moussa knew, at the age of 13, when he saw a bullet shooting the head of some body, that he was a man who could go to prison. So he went to prison, so he was beaten and so he keeps this to himself and just says “Libya is no good”.
When we listen to him singing, when the beat matches perfectly with his cozy movements, one should see how human he is. To be human: to have experienced things and places where you were not treated as one. So you know this is the only thing one should aspire in life.
From there he took a boat. Moussa, his cousin, old people, young people, less than one-year-old girls. For three days they crossed the mediterranean sea, shocking with the tunisian bay and its angry waves. One foot should stay out in the boat and the other inside. At night, no lights. During the day, no water, no food.
From Dakar to Palermo, he spent one year and four months of his life. He could not answer why his cousin had chosen him to go with. He has sisters and brothers; but it was him to go to Europe and live some sort of dream.
We met one day and Moussa’s friend pointed at him and said: “That is Moussa and he raps too.” Second time we saw each other he was singing. Then we waved and he was shy. As if asking himself: “Is this somebody to trust?”. But I knew Moussa was just a nice boy and overall a gentle man.
Monsieur Moussa Diallo, for the moment, wants to do some things. To finish school, to travel all over the world, to work and buy an apartment in Croix-Rousse. He made a home out of this neighborhood, the first place he went to in France to escape from the hellish island of Palermo — where he felt neither man nor boy, but simply a body who emerged from the ocean. He would not return to Italy. But he would stay in France.
And for sure he will sing.
l'étrangère 