Mahmoud Ahmed (Photo: By Damian Rafferty)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Friday, July 25th, 2014
New York (TADIAS) – In the ‘Night Life’ section of its latest issue The New Yorker magazine highlights the legendary Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed as “one of the most exhilarating singers of the past half century” and notes that he “blends traditional Ethiopian Amharic music with sixties and seventies soul, funk, and jazz.”
Mahmoud Ahmed is coming to Brooklyn to kick off Issue Project Room’s summer concert series at Pioneer Works on Saturday, July 26th. The last time that Mahmoud performed in New York was in 2011.
“Now seventy-three, Ahmed was born to an impoverished family in Addis Ababa, and as a young boy had to shine shoes on the street to help support his family,” The New Yorker adds. “He later worked as a handyman at a club that hosted Emperor Haile Selassie’s Imperial Bodyguard Band, and, one night in 1962, when the band’s singer did not show up, Ahmed asked to sit in on a few songs; soon afterward, he became one of the group’s front men…His multi-octave voice made him a household name in Ethiopia, and a star since nearly the moment he started recording.”
—
If You Go:
Mahmoud Ahmed Live in Brooklyn
Saturday, July 26th, 2014 – 3:00 – 8:00pm
At Pioneer Works:
159 Pioneer St., Brooklyn NY 11231
TICKETS: $20 General / $15 Members + Students
http://issueprojectroom.org/event/mahmoud-ahmed
Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.
