During the Ottoman and, later, British occupation of Palestine, Palestinian women developed the mlolah to pass messages through prison walls: a vocal technique that disguises meaning by inserting “la” syllables throughout the lyrics, converting what sounds like a love song into a carrier of news, plans, and coded solidarity for those on the other side. Hanoun Brass Band‘s “Shamaali / Ya Tal’aeen,” the second track on their debut album From New Orleans to Palestine, takes two songs from that tradition and plays them through New Orleans brass: trumpets, cornets, trombones, saxophones, sousaphone, and percussions.
“Tarweedeh Shmaali” is a song about exile and the impossibility of reaching loved ones across an occupied distance, its lyrics encoding that longing through the mlolah technique. “Ya Tal’aeen” was sung by Palestinian women to imprisoned loved ones under Israeli occupation, its coded verses carrying messages of coming liberation. The band’s arrangements are led by accordionist Simon Moushabeck, a Palestinian-American musician who grew up in Massachusetts studying Arabic music and has worked as a professional musician in New Orleans since moving there.
Hanoun formed on Twelfth Night, 6 January 2024, when New Orleans musicians and community members marched into the first Carnival parade of the season, filling the route with Arabic drums, brass, and chants for Palestinian liberation. That night became the founding act of New Orleans Musicians for Palestine, an organisation now comprising Hanoun as its community brass band, a Carnival krewe called Krewe of Zeitoun, and a musicians’ solidarity network.
From New Orleans to Palestine collects arrangements of Palestinian and Arabic songs the band has played in the streets and at protests over the past two years, all eight tracks arranged for New Orleans brass by Moushabeck, Ashlae Blum’e, and Romain Beauxis, and recorded at the Material Institute in May 2025. Elsewhere on the album: Mohammed Assaf‘s “Ana Dammi Falastini,” a song of Palestinian identity played at protests and weddings across the Arab world; the traditional folk song “Ya Zareef At-Toul,” about longing to leave one’s town, reread now against decades of Palestinian displacement; and “Leve Palestina,” a Swedish song declaring solidarity with Palestinian liberation.
Listen to “Shamaali / Ya Tal’aeen” and get your copy of From New Orleans to Palestine HERE. All proceeds from the album go to Gaza Birds Singing, a project supporting music-making in Gaza.