Today in New York City The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with World Music Institute presents a Digital Premiere featuring Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke. According to the museum the concert was recorded at the MET on September 9, 2016. The JazzTimes called it “a spirited and entrancing set that spanned his career and spotlighted his gift for shifting fluidly between intricate, sinuous melodies and airy, atmospheric grooves.” (MET)
MET Museum
Known as the father of Ethio-jazz, composer and multi-instrumentalist Mulatu Astatke rose to international fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his unique mix of American jazz and Ethiopian music, drawing comparisons to jazz giants Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. Forced off the road for a time due to the political situation in his homeland, he came roaring back in the 1990s, recording and touring as never before.
Astatke’s music begins and ends with improvisation and is the product of fearless experimentation. Experience the sounds, rhythms, and textures of this pioneer of Ethiopian jazz in The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing in a performance recorded on September 9, 2016, that JazzTimes called “a spirited and entrancing set that spanned his career and spotlighted his gift for shifting fluidly between intricate, sinuous melodies and airy, atmospheric grooves.”
Watch on Facebook or YouTube. Note: No login required.
—
If You Attend:
Digital Premiere—Mulatu Astatke at the MET
TUESDAY / JULY 27
7:00–8:40 P.M. www.metmuseum.org
Professor Mulatu Lemma taught mathematics at Savannah State University, a public historically Black university in Savannah, Georgia, for 25 years. He previously spent five years teaching and mentoring at Awash Junior College in Ethiopia. (Photo: SSU)
Savannah Tribune
Savannah State’s Mulatu Lemma Receives Presidential Award for Excellence
Mulatu Lemma, Ph.D., a mathematics professor at Savannah State University (SSU), is among 12 recipients of the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).
The PAESMEM recognizes those who have made significant contributions to mentoring and thereby support the future productivity of the U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce.
The program was created to identify and recognize individuals and organizations that have contributed outstanding efforts in mentoring and have enhanced the participation of individuals (including persons with disabilities) who might not otherwise have considered or had access to opportunities in STEM disciplines and professions.
“This is a great honor for Dr. Lemma,” said Kimberly Ballard-Washington, SSU interim president. “I congratulate him on this achievement and appreciate his years of service dedicated to preparing Savannah State’s students for careers in STEM. Dr. Lemma and other faculty who create mentoring opportunities for Savannah State’s students help to provide a nurturing educational environment at SSU.”
Lemma has taught mathematics at SSU for 25 years. He previously spent five years teaching and mentoring at Awash Junior College in Ethiopia.
His career has been dedicated to increasing the number of minorities in mathematics and other STEM fields using the power of mentoring. He has exhibited an abiding commitment to developing and nurturing “mathematically-inclined” minority students through mentoring activities in mathematics so that they gain a solid foundation to help them succeed in schools and in their careers. His objective, through a belief in active mentoring programs, is to produce a new generation of students highly skilled in mathematics.
Lemma is highly involved in mentoring students to help them to build self-confidence, self- esteem, and research experience. He has mentored students who range in age from 12 to 63.
Each Presidential Awardee receives a certificate signed by the President of the United States and a $10,000 award from the National Science Foundation. Awardees are honored during a ceremony, which takes place in Washington, D.C.
Mulatu Astatke is coming to Chicago this month for a sold-out concert at Garfield Park Conservatory on May 14th, 2019. (Photo: Alexis Maryon (C) 2013 for Harmonia Mundi)
Chicago Reader
Mulatu Astatke continues his Ethio-jazz evolution
Vibraphonist Mulatu Astatke has a seamless way of fusing the music of his native Ethiopia with jazz and Latin music (and you can hear a little bit of R&B in that mix too). On paper this esoteric brew might seem like an acquired taste, but in reality it’s just one worldly step away from Lonnie Liston Smith, Atlantic-era Les McCann, or any other 70s musician who tweaked jazz to follow popular tastes without watering down their sounds. On Astatke’s 1966 debut album, Afro-Latin Soul, he blended Ethiopian melodies with Latin jazz so skillfully that an inexperienced listener would never know either genre had been altered, but Astatke was bringing a different spice to the table. He recorded that album and its follow-up, Afro-Latin Soul Vol. 2, while living in New York, but though his work at the time reflected the musical culture of his adopted city, he never forgot the sounds of his homeland—and in the early 70s, he brought his hybrid style back to Africa, becoming one of the founders of the Ethio-jazz movement.
Ethiopian jazz master Mulatu Astatke will be taking a break from his extensive 2018 European concert tour to play at the 19th Cape Town International Jazz Festival in South Africa. This should come as no surprise given that he has been in global motion ever since his parents sent him to study aeronautical engineering in North Wales in 1956.
But Mulatu soon began trumpet lessons instead – he enrolled in London’s Trinity School of Music. While in London he heard performances by Caribbean and West African musicians that evoked his memories of the big bands he had enjoyed back home in Ethiopia. These performances pushed him to consider new a direction.
Mulatu was the first African student to enrol at what would soon become the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1958. There he traded in his trumpet for the vibraphone. In 1960 he lived in New York City, where he spent more than six years taking part in the world of American jazz, interacting with Latin musicians, making records and performing in concerts.
By the time Mulatu returned to Ethiopia later that decade, he had developed the concept of Ethio-jazz and was actively experimenting with this hybrid musical style. Ethio-jazz draws on multiple trends from the American jazz scene, including bebop and modal jazz combined with melodies and harmonies in the Ethiopian modal system.
Melding of sounds
Mulatu’s innovations were anchored by his childhood memories of traditional Ethiopian secular and church music. It was further inflected by harmony classes at the Berklee School and welded by the experience of hearing and playing jazz in London, Boston and New York City.
Mulatu’s pieces over the course of his career retain these early musical influences and a highly original mixture of sounds from places experienced on his lifelong itinerary.
An example is Mulatu’s signature piece ‘Yekermo Sew’ (A Man of Experience and Wisdom) which was featured in the soundtrack of American independent filmmaker and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch‘s 2005 film Broken Flowers and then circulated across the world. Composed following Mulatu’s return to Ethiopia in the late 1960s, ‘Yekermo Sew’ takes its title from a traditional Ethiopian Christian New Year’s blessing in Amharic, the national Ethiopian language.
In the mid-’60s, Mulatu Astatke began bending the rules of American jazz to fit the traditional music of his native Ethiopia and ended up launching an entire genre known as Ethio-jazz—a profoundly deep and funky style that hasn’t lost a shred of its cool over its 50-year run. The revered composer and multi-instrumentalist has collaborated with Duke Ellington and been sampled by Kanye West, and you certainly shouldn’t miss him when he hits SummerStage for the first time.
— If You Go:
Mulatu Astatke at SummerStage
Sunday, August 20th, 2017 at 6:00 pm
Central Park, SummerStage
Rumsey Playfield (enter at Fifth Ave and 72nd St)
New York
FreeEvent
More info at http://www.cityparksfoundation.org/summerstage
New York (TADIAS) – Mulatu Astatke’s seminal album Mulatu of Ethiopia was officially reissued on Friday, May 19th. The label, Strut Records, announced that the “official reissue of Mulatu Astatke landmark Ethio jazz album from 1972, including new interview and photographs, features previously unheard mono mix and session out-takes.”
The New York Times featured Mulatu’s album this week on their playlist, and noted: “The Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke studied vibraphone and percussion at Berklee College of Music in the mid-1960s, and a small label gave him the chance to record Ethio-jazz fusions. He made his funky, forward-looking, newly reissued 1972 album, “Mulatu of Ethiopia,” in New York City with jazz and Latin musicians, combining his African and American elements differently for each track. The melody of “Mulatu,” named for the composer himself, uses an unmistakably Ethiopian mode, while the track also has a crunchy wah-wah guitar, a steadfastly riffing horn section, a bullish saxophone solo and Mr. Astatke’s own vibraphone shimmering in dark spaces.”
Born in Jimma in 1943 the legendary artist is best known as the father of ethio-jazz. “At 73, Mulatu Astatke is as relevant as ever, and that goes for the music he made 45 years ago,” adds the music website Treble Zine in a recent highlight. “Mulatu of Ethiopia isn’t new, but every spin feels like a fresh discovery.”
New York (TADIAS) — Mulatu Astatke will return to New York City next month for a live show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) on September 9th.
The concert, which is part of the MetLiveArts program, is presented in collaboration with the World Music Institute.
“Known as the father of Ethio-jazz, composer and multi-instrumentalist (vibraphone, piano, keyboard, organs, and percussion) Mulatu Astatke leaped to international fame in the ’70s and ’80s with his unique mix of Western traditional Ethiopian music and admirers like Duke Ellington and John Coltrane,” states the announcement. “Forced off the road for a time due to the political situation in his homeland, he came roaring back in the ’90s, recording and touring as never before.”
The Met adds: “Known for his fearless experimentation, his music begins and ends with improvisation. Experience the sounds, rhythms, and textures of Ethiopia live in The Temple of Dendur.”
— If You Go:
Mulatu Astatke at The Met Fifth Avenue
FRIDAY / SEPTEMBER 9 @ 7:00 P.M.
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028
Phone: 212-535-7710
Door: $65.00, Bring the Kids for $1.
Tickets to this event include Museum admission during open hours. Click here to buy tickets
Mulatu Astatke’s exuberant blend of the best in African and western-themed improvisation is a finely balanced craft. (Photo: Mulatu Astatke at the Roundhouse, London. Photograph: Edu Hawkins/Redferns)
Nobody fuses the sounds and rhythms of African, American and European music the way Mulatu Astatke does. The Ethiopian multi-instrumentalist balances a songwriter’s seductiveness with a borderless vision and a relaxed faith in left-field improvisers. Much of this Roundhouse gig sounded off the cuff, but the trim, smiling, white-clad 72-year-old at the centre was always tweaking the overview with the lightest of touches on the helm.
Early in the show, Astatke’s Dewel was soon showcasing his talent for rousing free-collective improv exchanges from insistently riffy, bitter-sweet anthems, and rhythmic underpinnings that sometimes float and sometimes throb. Saxophonist James Arben’s blurted free-jazz tenor break, Byron Wallen’s warm flugelhorn sound, the abrupt punctuation of Alex Hawkins’s piano chording, and the combined percussion of the loose-limbed Tom Skinner, the talking-drums of Richard Olatunde Baker and Astatke himself on congas took the piece through constant changes.
Yekermo Sew (a simmering Astatke twister from Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers that sounds like a Latin-jazz theme with a raft of extra bars in it) spurred a shapely vibraphone solo from its creator. Urgent, barking riffs, John Edwards’s volcanic basslines and the drummers’ churning polyrhythms brought a kind of dark, Bitches Brew-like ecstasy to the set. Two female dancers whirled on, shimmied and shuddered amid the slamming riffs, and vanished to roars. The tenderness of Astatke’s Motherland was cherished by the classical poise of Danny Keane’s cello, the spirited London rapper Afrikan Boy clattered out fast-moving monologues against Edwards’s wild bass rejoinders, and the leader’s ruminative closing piano solo became the kind of glowing melody of rich brass sounds, lateral sax prods and deft resolutions to lazily curving themes that typified a truly memorable show.
Abel Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known by his stage name The Weeknd, is an Ethiopian-Canadian R&B singer, songwriter and record producer. (PHOTO BY: LAMAR TAYLOR)
All of the lights are off in the Weeknd’s apartment. It’s 49 floors up, high above the long shadows of Toronto’s financial district, and the clouds outside make everything in this sparse and tidy condo look monochrome. There is a white leather sectional stationed on a white rug so plush it would be disrespectful not to take your shoes off before walking on it. Platinum records for his 2012 mixtape collection Trilogy hang on the walls. A massive window reveals Lake Ontario, which has been a blueish boon to winter-weary city folk all summer; on this evening in late August, it’s grey, a precursor to the grim season ahead.
Abel Tesfaye strolls into the room and sits down at a long, dark, smoked-glass dining table. He’s in house clothes: a black Miami Heat mesh short-sleeve with fitted black jersey-blend pants and white house slippers. A child of immigrants who was raised in the bustling, brown suburb of Scarborough, he wears a filigreed Ethiopian cross around his neck—it’s the kind of token that stays hidden beneath clothing, but never comes off. His hair, the subject of so much curiosity and so many memes simply because he does whatever he wants with it, is there on his head as it should be. Mugs of green tea are set down on a folded paper towel, in lieu of coasters. Tesfaye smiles easy and often and is comfortable locking eyes, except when challenged to speak at length on his music. Then, he furrows his brow and speaks in clichés; his eyes swerve to the left; he stares at the iPhone set between us that is recording his thoughts; or he picks at an invisible blemish on the crook of his left arm. Otherwise, he asks questions. He seems eager to please, if not a bit nervous. When we say goodbye, Tesfaye’s last words are: “Write good things about me!” This is not the Weeknd I expected…
AT: It’s the first time any writer has really dove into that part of me and my music, but it’s always been there. That’s how I was raised. My mother, my grandmother, my uncles would play Ethiopian artists like Aster Aweke and Mulatu Astatke all the time in the house. They would drink coffee, eat popcorn, and listen to the music. It’s such beautiful music, but I didn’t realize how beautiful it was until I left that head space. That’s why I feel like my singing is not conventional. I mean, if you look at technique, I’m not a technical singer; I know I get bashed by R&B heads 24/7. I’m not here to do Luther Vandross runs. I can’t do what Jennifer Hudson does. But the feeling in my music and in my voice is very Ethiopian and very African and much more powerful than anything, technically. There are songs like “Gone” where I don’t even know what I’m saying—I let my voice do all the talking. I’ll probably do an album like that one day where it’s not lyrics at all, just melodies and great production. Maybe the next one, I don’t know. That’s the Ethiopian side of me. I didn’t know what [the musicians] were saying when I was younger: Just because you speak it doesn’t mean you really understand what they’re saying. Ethiopian poetry is a different language. I can speak and understand [Amharic], but I can’t understand their poetry. When my mother would translate—it’s the most beautiful thing ever. I’ve never been back home to Ethiopia, but when I do go I’m going to make it very special.
You’d expect a conversation with Mulatu Astake to be about music. He is, after all, the father of a musical genre: Ethio-jazz. But when he talks about the art form, he tends to focus on its scientific merits.
“When you start talking about jazz, they’re usually telling us that Africans contributed to the rhythm parts of jazz music, but it’s not only the rhythms. We have contributed to the science of jazz as well,” he says.
While innovators like Charlie Parker may get credit for the creation of modern jazz music by using diminished scales (as done in classical music by composers like Claude Debussy), Astake offers an alternative view:
“In southern Ethiopia, there are tribes called the Derashe — I call them the scientists of music. By cutting different size bamboos, [they] have been playing this diminished scale [for centuries]. So who first created it? Debussy, Charlie Parker, or the Derashe tribes?”
Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who’s been presented with such questions by Astatke, whose passion about Africa’s contribution to music extends back to the 1960s when he went on to fuse the traditional Ethiopian five-tone scales with western 12-note harmonies to give life to a whole new music genre: the hypnotizing and eerily seductive soundscape of ethio-jazz.
Mulatu Astatke at 70: Ethiopian tuning, Latin rhythms, the wah-wah pedal – ahead of a festival of African culture, Richard Williams hails a composer who likes to mix it up. (The Guardian)
Everybody knows that Ethiopian jazz is the only kind worth listening to these days,” a bored Roman socialite remarks during one of the many party scenes in Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty. It sounds like an epitaph. How could something so special, so original, survive the embrace of people so devoted to superficiality, so quick to move on to the next sensation?
As a fashionable novelty, Ethiopian jazz may indeed have had its moment in the spotlight. As an evolving form, however, it demonstrates greater resilience. Its roots lie deep within the musical culture of a country that, with the exception of a brief period under Italian occupation between 1936 and 1941, has enjoyed 3,000 years of independence. The first to realise that its distinctive indigenous modes and textures could be blended with those of American jazz was Mulatu Astatke, the composer and bandleader whose early recordings began to attract a cult following 15 years ago, after being unearthed and reissued by an enthusiastic Frenchman.
Astatke, whose appearance in London on 13 September will be a highlight of the Southbank Centre’s Africa Utopia festival, was supposed to devote his life to aeronautical engineering. Instead, he invented a musical genre and became the central figure in an enormously successful series of anthologies that dug deep into the origins of a fascinating but long-hidden world.
The 16-year-old Astatke had arrived in Britain in 1959, sent from Addis Ababa to North Wales by his wealthy parents, first to Lindisfarne College and then to Bangor University. But music got in the way of those initial career plans, and his gifts took him to Trinity College of Music in London, where he studied piano, clarinet and harmony, and to the Eric Gilder School of Music in Twickenham, whose pupils included the Ghanaian saxophonist Teddy Osei – later to found Osibisa, the pioneering Afro-rock group – and Labi Siffre, the singer-guitarist. He began playing vibraphone and piano in the clubs of Soho with expatriate African and Caribbean jazz musicians, and in dance halls with the popular Edmundo Ros orchestra.
Leaving London in 1963, he enrolled as the first African student at the jazz-oriented Berklee College in Boston, whose alumni include the vibraphonist Gary Burton and the pianist Keith Jarrett. Moving to New York, he pursued his interests in jazz and Latin music.
Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke returned to action recently with the release of Sketches of Ethiopia (Jazz Village), an impressive outing—cut with some of London’s best improvisers—that embraces “jazz” as more than just flavoring. It’s his first album with international distribution. His backing band here is dubbed the Steps Ahead Band, which thankfully has nothing to do with Michael Brecker’s fusion band of the same name—this one includes folks like bassist John Edwards, trumpeter Byron Wallen, and pianist Alexander Hawkins. The record opens with one of its most traditional-sounding tracks, “Azmari,” which was written by Astatke’s longtime colleague and collaborator, Boston reedist Russ Gershon of Either/Orchestra fame. The knotty track is graced by the leader’s crystalline vibraphone and the brittle twang of traditional Ethiopian string instruments like the krar and masinko (played, respectively, by Messale Asmamow and Idris Hassun). From there on out the album stretches stylistically, liberally borrowing this and that.
“Gamo” is one of several songs featuring the gruff singing of Tesfaye, but the sweet-toned kora licks of Kandia Kora lend it a pan-African air. “Hager Fiker,” which is a traditional tune from Astatke’s homeland, gets a heavy jazz treatment, with a deep upright-bass groove from Edwards, percolating hand percussion, and a lyric, halting vibe solo from the leader, as well as dueling improvisations between James Arben on flute and Yohanes Afwork on end-blown wood instrument the washint, regularly prodded by sleek, swerving horn arrangements. You can check it out below.
“Gambella,” another song with Tesfaye, pushes toward a spiritual jazz vibe, while “Assosa Derache” is decidedly moody and subdued, reaching toward a brief post-Miles Davis spaciness in its final minutes before resuming a head-nodding groove. (I don’t think the album title’s closeness to the Davis/Gil Evans collaboration Sketches of Spain is accidental.) The album stumbles on “Gumuz,” which gives a glossy contemporary treatment to another traditional pieces from the titular Ethiopian tribe—the treacly electric keyboards and the George Benson-styled guitar interjections of guest Jean-Baptiste Saint-Martin sap all the life out of the performance. The limpid cello that opens “Motherland Abay” amid cascading piano, oboe, and kora gives the piece an almost Chinese-sounding serenity (partly due to the pentatonic scale), but then a soulful bass ostinato opens up and Wallen takes a lovely Harmon-muted solo to clearly summon the spirit of Davis. The album closes with a collaboration with the great Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, and her presence—she cowrote the song “Surma” with Astatke—pulls the song toward West Africa.
Mulatu Teshome has been elected by parliament as Ethiopia's new president. (Photo: World Bulletin)
Tadias Magazine
By Dagnachew Teklu
Published: Monday, October 7th, 2013
Washington D.C. (TADIAS) — The Ethiopian parliament has elected Dr. Mulatu Teshome Wirtu to serve as Ethiopia’s President for the next six years.
Dr. Mulatu replaces the outgoing Girma Wolde-Giorgis who has held the position for the past 12 years.
Mulatu, a 57-year-old economist, was Ethiopia’s top diplomat in Ankara, Turkey prior to his election as President on Monday, October 7th, 2013. Mulatu has also served as Ethiopia’s ambassador to China and Japan, as well as several other government posts including as Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture. The new president, a father of one son, said he is humbled by the appointment and vowed to work hard to speed up the the country’s development.
Mulatu is the fourth president since the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power some 21 years ago. The ruling party controls 546 out of 547 seats in the Ethiopian parliament, and the lone opposition parliament member, Girma Seifu, represents the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (UDJ).
Video: Dr. Mulatu Teshome becomes new president of Ethiopia
Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke, the members of the Eagles, and Grammy winner Alison Krauss were honored during the Berklee College of Music's commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 12 at Boston University's Agganis Arena. (Photo courtesy of Mulatu Astatke's Facebook page)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Tuesday, May 15, 2012
New York (TADIAS) – Influential musician and “Father of Ethio-Jazz” Mulatu Astatke has been awarded an honorary doctorate in music degree from his alma mater The Berklee College of Music – the largest independent college of contemporary music located in Boston. The artist was honored along with the Eagles and Grammy Award-winning country singer Alison Krauss during the school’s commencement ceremony on Saturday.
Keeping with four decades of tradition, where Berklee has been presenting honorary degrees to prominent figures in the music industry, students paid tribute to Mulatu, Krauss and the Eagles with a concert featuring their music. More than 900 students from 58 countries graduated from Berklee this year, according to AP.
“At Berklee, I was immersed in a motivating and creative academic environment where Ethio-jazz was conceived,” Mulatu told the graduating class at a ceremony the night before graduation. “You now have the skills and the education to create new innovations in music . . . You are a selected few with a special gift, and we all have great expectations for you”.
Mulatu was one of the first African students to attend Boston’s prestigious music college, where he studied vibraphone and percussion in the 1960′s.
“This year’s honorary doctorate recipients were recognized for their achievements in contemporary music, for their enduring contributions to popular culture, and for the influence their careers and music have had over Berklee’s international student body,” the school said in a statement. “The Eagles, Krauss, and Astatke join the ranks of such esteemed recipients as Duke Ellington (the first, in 1971), Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Bonnie Raitt, Count Basie, Sting, Loretta Lynn, B.B. King, Billy Joel, Chaka Khan, Steven Tyler, and Patti LaBelle.”
At 66, Mulatu is on fire, as his seductive sound wins fans around the world. It’s all down to late nights in the hotels of Addis Ababa.
Source:Telegraph
By Peter Culshaw
Published: 24 Mar 2010
Athe age of 66, Mulatu Astatke is having the time of his life. The jazz composer and performer from Ethiopia is in the midst of a full-blown Indian summer in his career. He received a huge boost when influential film-maker Jim Jarmusch used his music for his 2005 film Broken Flowers, and was also a key figure in the 2007 The Very Best of Ethiopiques compilation, one of the most unlikely best-sellers of the last decade. Once heard, Astatke’s music is not easily forgotten. His signature vibraphone playing style uses the distinctive five-note Ethiopian scale and is like jazz from a parallel universe, by turns haunting, romantic and a touch sleazy, as though the soundtrack to some seductive espionage B-movie. Read more.
Watch: Mulatu Astatke – Ethio Jazz Retrospective (Strut)
I know, I know. The response to this question is always “does it matter?” And the answer is usually “no.”
Still, it’s occasionally useful to explore. And this year, there seems to be some balking at the inclusion of Ethopian groove music pioneer Mulatu Astatke within the jazz umbrella. I heard it privately from a few people when Bob Boilen, host/creator of NPR Music’s All Songs Considered, called Astatke’s new album Inspiration Information 3 “the best jazz record I’ve heard in 2009.” Recently, the voracious listener known as Free Jazz Stef also expressed some reservations:
This album is OK, but nothing more than that. It is a mixture of stuff, often characterless, but the Ethopian’s music is so compelling, that it even withstands the treatment given here. I hope it will lead listeners to the real music. Read more. Yekermo Sew: Mulatu Astatke and Heliocentrics Live
Ace to Ace interview with Mulatu Astatke
In the Ethiopian musical world Mulatu Astatke is atypical, totally
unique, a legend unto himself. He was the first Ethiopian musician
educated abroad, object of tribute and admiration. Mulatu is the
the inventor and maybe the only musician of Ethio-Jazz (Jazz
instrumentals with strong brass rhythms and traditional elements
of Ethiopian music).
Ethiopian Jazz on Display in London: Mulatu the Magnificent
New York (Tadias) – One of the most anticipated music shows in London next week is Ethio-jazz inventor Mulatu Astatke’s collaboration with the Heliocentrics collective. “Even if the evening doesn’t live up to expectations, the Ethiopian bandleader’s new album is sure to make it onto my end-of-year-list of the best releases,” writes culture commentator Clive Davis on his Spectator blog.
Mulatu collaborates with Heliocentrics collective (VIDEO)
On his blog, Mr Davis also points out the amazing soundtrack of Jim
Jarmusch’s 2005 movie “Broken Flowers”, which featured Mulatu’s
music. Here is the video:
Ethiopian Jazz, Ellington and more: LA Weekly’s Conversation With Mulatu Astatke
LA Weekly
By Jeff Weiss in weiss
Wednesday, April 8, 2009.
A Conversation With Mulatu Astatke: On Heliocentrics, Ethio-Jazz and Ellington
Rivaling Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Franco, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and a handful of others, Mulatu Astatke ranks among the most influential African musicians of all-time. The father of Ethio-Jazz, the Berklee-trained Mulatu was the first of his countryman to fuse American jazz and funk, with native folk and Coptic Chuch melodies. The leading light of the “Swingin’ Addis-”era, Astatke is often acknowledged as the star of the epic Ethiopiques Series, At least, according to filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who included songs from the Mulatu-arranged and composed, Vol. 4, in his ode to midlife melancholia, Broken Flowers. Read More.
Related: Ace to Ace interview with Mulatu AstatkeMulatu Astatqe (VIDEO)
In the Ethiopian musical world Mulatu Astatke is atypical, totally unique, a legend unto himself. He was the first Ethiopian musician educated abroad, object of tribute and admiration. Mulatu is the the inventor and maybe the only musician of Ethio-Jazz (Jazz instrumentals with strong brass rythms and traditionnal elements of Ethiopian music). Watch the video here.
Hello Music Theory highlights ten popular artists from Ethiopia including Aster Aweke, Teddy Afro, Mulatu Astatke, Gigi, Abinet Agonafir, Mahmoud Ahmed, Ali Birra, Zeritu Kebede, Betty G, and Abby Lakew. (Courtesy photos)
Tadias Magazine
Updated: April 3rd, 2023
New York (TADIAS) — Which Ethiopian musicians would make it to your top ten list?
According to a recent compilation by Hello Music Theory, created by music students in London, the list includes Aster Aweke, Teddy Afro, Mulatu Astatke, Gigi, Abinet Agonafir, Mahmoud Ahmed, Ali Birra, Zeritu Kebede, Betty G, and Abby Lakew.
While there are many other new and established talents that could be added to the list, Hello Music’s selection is impressive and highlights the increasing popularity of Ethiopian music beyond its borders.
Aster Aweke:
Legendary musician Aster Aweke is considered one of the best Ethiopian singers of all time. She is celebrated for her compelling vocals and captivating lyrics. Although born in Gondar, Aster spent her formative years in Addis Ababa, where her father worked. She began singing at the age of 13, driven by her passion for music. In her youth, she even performed alongside prominent bands in clubs throughout the city.
In 1981, Aster Aweke made a significant move to the United States, and that proved to be a pivotal moment in her career. That same year, she released her debut album on a US label, titled “Aster.” The song that brought her international acclaim, “Anteye,” has sold millions of copies, firmly establishing her as a star.
Teddy Afro:
Teddy Afro (real name Tewodros Kassahun Germamo) is one of the most popular contemporary musicians among Ethiopians worldwide. The renowned Singer-songwriter is admired for his exceptional songwriting abilities and revolutionary tracks. Teddy, who grew up in Addis Ababa, released his debut album in 2001. Four years later he dropped his third CD, Yasteseryal, which gained widespread attention due to the political turmoil in Ethiopia at the time. Although four of the songs on the album were banned, it still managed to sell millions of copies, solidifying Teddy Afro’s place as a prominent figure in Ethiopian music.
Mulatu Astatke:
Of course, Mulatu Astatke, the pioneer of Ethiopian Jazz, is also on the list. The composer and arranger is indeed a trailblazing figure in Ethiopian music. He is credited with creating a unique fusion of Ethiopian traditional music and jazz, which he called “Ethio-jazz.” Mulatu Astatke is known for his distinctive sound, which features complex rhythms and harmonies, and incorporates traditional Ethiopian instruments such as the krar and the washint.
Mulatu’s music gained international recognition in the 1960s and 70s, when he studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston and performed with jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. He went on to release a series of influential albums, including “Afro-Latin Soul” and “Mulatu of Ethiopia,” which helped to establish him as a leading figure in the world music scene.
Today, Mulatu continues to tour and perform around the world, and his music has influenced a new generation of Ethiopian musicians. He is widely regarded as a cultural ambassador for Ethiopia and a pioneer in the development of African jazz.
Gigi:
Ejigayehu Shibabaw, known by her stage name Gigi, is a renowned vocalist. Her early exposure to traditional Ethiopian music came from an Orthodox priest during her upbringing.in northwestern Ethiopia.
Gigi rose to fame with the release of her self-titled album “Gigi” in 2001, which featured collaborations with several American jazz musicians. The album was a fusion of traditional and contemporary music, and it received critical acclaim and commercial success, making waves in her home country.
Following the success of her debut album, Gigi went on to release two more albums in 2003 and 2006, which further solidified her position as a prominent musician in Ethiopia. Notably, her captivating vocals were featured in the movie Beyond Borders, where the famous actress Angelina Jolie played the lead role.
Mahmoud Ahmed:
Mahmoud Ahmed, an iconic singer, rose to prominence in the 1970s and gained international recognition across Africa and Europe. Mahmoud began his singing career at an early age while residing in the Mercato district of Addis Ababa.
Initially, he started as a band singer and performed with various prominent groups of that era. Later on, he embarked on a solo music career and released several successful singles that gained him recognition in Ethiopia.
However, his global recognition came after the release of his album Ere Mela Mela, which was a compilation of tracks from two of his LPs. This was a time when Ethiopia was going through political turmoil. His most significant achievement was in 2007 when he won the BBC World Music Award.
Ali Birra:
Ali Birra.is another legendary Ethiopian singer featured by Hello Music. He was born in Dire Dawa. He is one of the few notable artists who popularized funk, jazz, rock, and reggae beats in East Africa.
Ali Birra was only 13 when he joined a cultural group to promote Oromo music and culture. His first singing engagement involved him singing “Birra dha Bari’e,” which gave birth to his nickname. Ali is from his first name, while Birra is from the song.
Ali Birra began his singing career in Addis Ababa after relocating from his native home. He met various nationalists, such as Ahmad Taqi, who influenced his music career. His big break came in 1971 when he released his first album, which was also the first album in Oromo music history.
Zeritu Kebede:
Zeritu Kebede represents the new era of Ethiopian music. Listening to her voice is a sure way to ignite a love for music.
Zeritu grew up in Addis Ababa and had a passion for music from an early age. She used to listen to her parents’ collection, which featured renowned musician Mahmoud Ahmed.
After completing high school, Zeritu pursued her passion for singing professionally, and she released her debut album in 2005. The album’s standout track was “Yane,” which quickly became a fan favorite in Ethiopia and propelled the album to great success.
Betty G:
Betty G, also known as Bruktawit Getahun, is a renowned Ethiopian singer-songwriter. She was raised in Addis Ababa and pursued higher education in Office Management, but her studies did not deter her from following her passion for music.
Initially, Betty G was not well-known in the Ethiopian music industry. However, after collaborating with prominent musicians like Nhatty Man, she started gaining recognition.
In 2015, Betty G made a name for herself with the release of her first album, Manew Fitsum. Since then, she has worked with other famous musicians such as Teddy Afro and Zeritu Kebede. Her second album, Wegegta, was released to critical acclaim and received six AFRIMA nominations.
Abby Lakew:
Abby Lakew, the final musician on this list, is an artist who sings in both English and Amharic. She was born and raised in Gondar until she relocated to the United States at the age of 13.
Her first album, produced in both English and Amharic, was released in 2005. She went on to release several other albums, including popular tracks like “Shikorina” and “Abrerew.”
In 2015, Lakew’s career skyrocketed with the release of her hit single, “Yene Habesha,” which amassed over 54 million views on YouTube. The song catapulted her to international fame, and in 2016, she was nominated for the Best Traditional Female Artist for Africa award, solidifying her place in the music industry.
The Oregon native chats about going through a quarter-life crisis, his embrace of brutal honesty, Portland protests, and the influential Sunday morning soundtrack of his childhood [Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and a lot of Mulatu Astatke]. (OPB.org)
“Let’s not front / It’s my year,” Aminé announces in “Shimmy,” the first single from his album “Limbo,” which came out last month.
It’s a bold proclamation given the current state of the country. COVID-19 has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, civil unrest has gripped his hometown for months, and wildfires are burning largely unchecked throughout much of the West, including the musician’s adopted home in Southern California.
But coming from the Portland-born rapper, it’s entirely plausible. In many ways, he was made for this moment.
Four years ago, Aminé experienced a meteoric rise, almost entirely bypassing Portland’s local music scene on the way to mainstream success. The appeal was easy to understand. Propelled forward by the summertime jam “Caroline,” he existed in a (mostly yellow) technicolor world. The songs on his debut record were marked by catchy, keys-driven beats and the kind of cutting pop culture references that involuntarily curl the corners of your mouth. But it was his ability to deftly mix serious social commentary with irreverent humor and an almost unsinkable buoyancy that hinted at greater staying power.
On “Limbo,” that’s where he firmly plants his flag, establishing himself as one of the Northwest’s finest musical exports along the way.
The joyful quirkiness is still there, but on the album’s 13 songs (and one skit) it’s tempered with a healthy dose of what the musician refers to as “brutal honesty.” While that turn is certainly a sign of the distressing times we live in, Aminé also hinted at a deeper, existential cause in a recent conversation with opbmusic that also touched on his complicated relationship with Portland, his thoughts on the city’s protest movement, and the early musical influence of spending Sunday mornings with his parents.
Aminé will be the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC this Thursday, Sept. 24.
Listen to the interview above or read the full transcript below.
Jerad Walker: I’m here with Adam Aminé Daniel, better known as Aminé, whose new album “Limbo” came out last month via Republic Records. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today.
Aminé: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.
Walker: I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I think you sound a little lost — maybe existentially — on some of these songs.
Aminé: I do feel lost. I’m kind of 26 years old, going through a quarter-life crisis, just becoming an adult, really coming into my own. And this is just a very honest album. I think it takes a lot of guts for an artist to just be honest like this on an album, because you don’t get to hear that that much in 2020 at least from a hip-hop perspective.
When I started making “Limbo” I though a lot about legacy. I was inspired by a lot of albums, but one that inspired me a while ago was “4:44” by Jay-Z where I got to hear this veteran and one of the all-time greatest rappers alive be brutally honest in his music. And I thought that is just dope. That to me is what makes somebody’s legacy really cool and something that would last forever, when you could just be honest. I thought I wanted to make something that I could play formy kids 10 years from now and listen to it and smile because what I say in a song really happened.
Walker: I think being jolted by a moment is not uncommon in your 20s or 30s, but one catalyst for you on this album seems to have been the death of Kobe Bryant. You reference his influence mostly on the song “Woodlawn.” Why Kobe?
Aminé: Kobe just affected every kind of young Black man in America who played sports. And for me, he was like a second dad that I saw on TV. I never knew a life without Kobe. So, um, seeing him die was tragic, you know, for me and my friends. So that was definitely something I wanted to touch on. But it isn’t the main focus of the album.
Walker: “Woodlawn” also prominently references your home neighborhood of Woodlawn Park. You were born and raised in Portland and went to Benson High. What was your experience like growing up here?
Aminé: It was OK. I mean, I lived in a very Black neighborhood, but throughout the years it got very gentrified and things changed. It’s not really the same anymore. It was bittersweet. You never, as a minority, you never felt welcome or felt like you belong there.
Walker: When you come back to visit your family, what are your impressions of the area?
Aminé: You know, I go back to Portland very frequently. It’s not like I stay months away from Portland. I was just there yesterday and I literally saw, like, five new buildings that I hadn’t seen last month. It’s just kind of crazy just how things change in the city.
Walker: You’ve never been one to shy away from political and social current events. And during an appearance on The Tonight Show, you famously launched one of the first artistic broadsides against then President-elect Trump in 2016 right after the election. I’m curious. Have you been following the protests in Portland?
Aminé: Yeah, very much so.
Walker: What’s your general take on all of it? Are you worried that the central message that “Black lives matter” might get co-opted by outside interests and political posturing?
Aminé: Yeah, because for me I’ve said this before as well, but it’s a beautiful thing to see the city come out in protest, of course, on their 100th day and everything. But you know, the same Black lives that they’re protesting for are the same Black lives that Portland doesn’t deem worthy. The people that have the Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns are the same people that are gentrifying the neighborhoods and kicking out Black families out of those neighborhoods. So it’s a bit hypocritical, and the city of Portland just has a lot of work to do. A lot, you know what I mean? I think it’s a beautiful thing that you can go out there and protest, but do you really deem a Black life worthy? That’s the real question I have.
Walker: Can you tell me about the song “Pressure In My Palms”? I feel like its vibe encapsulates a lot of people’s daily stress levels right now.
Aminé: Yeah, I guess that’s actually a good way to put it, but I don’t think I made that song with that intent. “Pressure In My Palms” was kind of this sample of my voice that we made two years ago, and it was at the end of another song and it was just a skit. And then we sampled it and made it into the song that you now hear, which is one of my favorite tracks on the album just because it embodies all these like pop culture references that I love to usually do in my music. And it involves two artists who feature on it that I’m fans of as well.
Walker: I was going to ask you about that. I really enjoy the features on this record, and this track, in particular, has Vince Staples and slowthai on it. Vince is nearby you in LA, but slowthai is based in Britain. How do collaborations like that come together?
Aminé: Well, if you know me, you know that I love to travel. So when I was in London, I recorded slowthai’s verses a year ago, and Vince pulled up in LA to the studio and recorded that. Those were just genuinely friends of mine, so asking them for verses on a song like this wasn’t hard.
Walker: One of my favorites on the records is the track “Shimmy.” It’s almost a love song to Old Dirty Bastard’s 1995 release “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” You were literally in diapers when that song originally came out. You were a 1-year-old. How did you come to music? You grew up in a home with parents from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Were they the main driver of discovery for you as a child?
Aminé: Definitely. The way my Sundays would start was I’d be woken up by loud music playing in the kitchen and my mom cooking, playing nothing but like Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye and anything soulful. So that was my introduction to D’Angelo, to Erykah Badu, and my father was heavily into Bob Marley and just Ethiopian music in general. So I was raised in a very musical household.
Walker: What Ethiopian music, if you don’t mind me asking?
Aminé: A lot of Mulatu [Astatke]. Yeah, just like a lot of Ethiopian jazz.
Walker: What do your parents make of your success? How are they dealing with this?
Aminé: They didn’t really understand it at first, because it’s kind of out of the norm for a first-generation African kid, you know? So this was something that, genuinely, took them time to grow to understand. But they’re really proud and they’re like my biggest fans.
Walker: What were they pushing you to do before your music career?
Aminé: Yeah, just like any anyone coming from an African household, a doctor or a lawyer or something in marketing or advertising. So something simple like that and secure.
Walker: Well, a wildly successful hip-hop artist does not sound like a bad second choice, I suppose.
Aminé: Definitely not.
Walker: The record is “Limbo” and it’s out now via Republic Records. Aminé, thank you so much for chatting with us.
QWANQWA is a five-piece ensemble based in Addis Ababa, dedicated to exploring and furthering Ethiopia’s unique string traditions. The group draws inspiration from the regional sounds of Ethiopia, East Africa, and beyond. (Courtesy Photo)
Press Release
QWANQWA RETURNS IN 2020 WITH QWANQWA VOLUME 3
QWANQWA is a five-piece ensemble based in Addis Ababa, dedicated to furthering Ethiopia’s unique string traditions. Inspired by a shared passion for Ethiopian music, the group brings together some of the most accomplished traditional players in the country; creating a space to explore new sounds and break the rules in a very traditional musical culture.
Since their 2012 debut, QWANQWA has merged the richness and diversity of rooted tradition with a modern, experimental sensibility, inspired improvisation, and a mission to transcend genres and blur boundaries. Their third studio album, Volume 3, will be released internationally on vinyl, CD, and digital platforms on September 11th, 2020, at midnight, just in time for Ethiopian New Years (2013 on the Ethiopian Calendar).
In keeping with the inclusive spirit of QWANQWA’s previous two albums, Volume 3 reaches deep into Ethiopia’s regional traditions and beyond its borders, taking inspiration from the country’s diverse ethnic population and neighbors to the North, West, and East. Recorded in Addis Ababa over the course of a long weekend in February 2017, the album is a snapshot of a dynamic band in evolution.
A long time in the making, QWANQWA Volume 3 features the band’s pre-2018 repertoire and lineup — Endris Hassen on one-string mesenko fiddle, Mesele Asmamaw on vocals and electric krar lyre, Kaethe Hostetter on five string electric violin, Bubu Teklemariam on bass krar, Selamnesh Zemene (vocalist), and Misale Leggesse on kebero.
“The music on this album reflects the repertoire we were working with at the time,” says QWANQWA bandleader Katehe Hostetter. “The material was sourced from regions beyond Ethiopia’s borders, including an Eritrean tribal chant transformed by our arrangement, and a Somali pop song. We were inspired by the infinite musical variety of Ethiopia and its neighbors, and dove deep into the traditions beyond the five most well known ethnic groups. Thanks to our band members’ Endris Hassen and Misale Legesse’s encyclopedic knowledge, we were able to spotlight these tiny pockets of overlooked musical traditions.”
“Since the recording of this album,” Kaethe adds, “Addis Ababa has dipped in and out of a State of Emergency due to ethnic tensions, but we’ve stayed resilient and creative, and our message of one unified Ethiopia, that celebrates and includes all 84 official ethnic groups, has never felt more poignant.”
The first track, “Ago”, welcomes the listener into the evocative world of QWANQWA, with a trio arrangement of a melody from the Northern people, in which you’ll hear the violin evoking the simple Shepard’s flute. “Blen“ is based on an Eritrean melody of the Blen tribe, that’s traditionally accompanied by a circle of dancing young men, dressed in white and spinning like dervishes. “Somali” is a cover of a Dur Dur Band tune, with an extended section where Mesele and Kaethe trade melody and soloing. “Serg” is a 20 minute wedding song medley that is meant to invoke the trance-like experience of an Amhara wedding.
“This album was originally meant to support our Fall 2020 North American tour debut — 48 U.S. dates backed by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, anchored by a special collaboration with with Tomeka Reid and Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival. Thanks to COVID-19, our tour is postponed until next year, but the album was still ready to go, so we decided to release anyway. We’re just thrilled to finally see this album out in the world and connect with our fans even if we can’t do it live!”
(QWANQWA, left to right: Bubu Teklemariam, Endris Hassen, Selamnesh Zemene, Misale Legesse, Kaethe Hostetter)
…
ABOUT QWANQWA
QWANQWA is a five-piece ensemble based in Addis Ababa, dedicated to exploring and furthering Ethiopia’s unique string traditions. The group draws inspiration from the regional sounds of Ethiopia, East Africa, and beyond. Delving deep into traditional beats and moods, QWANQWA’s music is characterized by tight arrangements and inspired improvisation punctuated by extended experimental moments.
“QWANQWA is a project where master instrumentalists can open up and improvise,” says founder Kaethe Hostetter. “It’s about creating a space to explore new sounds and allow players to break the rules in a very traditional musical culture.” The group takes its name from the Amharic word for “language,” is dedicated to creating musical dialogues between cultures, and the proposition that music is the universal language that transcends borders and boundaries.
QWANQWA’s singular sound is built on an array of Ethiopia’s unique traditional instruments: Swirling mesenko, punk krar solos (electric lyre), wah-wah-violin, bass krar boom, and the unstoppable rhythm of heavy kebero beats, punctuated by a Western 5-string electric fiddle. With this lineup and the group’s stunning new vocalist, QWANQWA has enchanted audiences at home and abroad.
The ensemble was founded in 2012 by American violinist Kaethe Hostetter, who first worked in Ethiopian music as a founding member of critically acclaimed Debo Band. Since relocating to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, in 2009, she’s honed her sound and dived deep into the culture, playing in numerous exploratory and professional projects. As part of her immersion in Ethiopian music and culture, Hostetter brought together some of the most accomplished players in Addis Ababa’s music scene.
“QWANQWA originally started as a purposefully instrumental ensemble, defiantly the only one of its kind in Addis,” says Kaethe. “We spotlighted the virtuosity of the instrumentalists that often got lost behind the singers. We spent years performing and strengthening as a quartet, until we invited singer Selamnesh Zemene to join as our front woman in 2018. Over the course of eight years of performing and touring, we’ve grown into a tight-knit band, rooted in deep friendship and shared experience, and Selamnesh fit right in, taking us to the next level.”
QWANQWA is Endris Hassen (mesenko), Kaethe Hostetter (violin), Bubu Teklemariam (bass krar), Selamnesh Zemene (vocalist), and Misale Legesse (kebero).
Misale Legesse has been active in Ethiopian music for over twenty years. He was born in Addis Ababa’s Sidist Kilo neighborhood where he started playing percussion as a child – using pails and empty cardboard boxes as his instruments. He honed his skills to become Addis’s go-to percussionist on both conga and the traditional kebero drum. He’s released several original albums, and toured internationally, performing with such legends as Mahmoud Ahmed and Aster Aweke, and joined experimental projects with such partners as The EX and Paal Nilssen-Love.
Endris Hassen is arguably the most sought after masinqo player in Addis. An in-demand studio musician who has guested on over two thousand albums, Endris is also founding member of several key groups, including Fendika, Nile Project, Ethiocolor, Atse Teodros, and more.
Selamnesh Zemene is a powerhouse vocalist and one of Ethiopia’s rising divas. She hails from the Azmari bloodline of griot-like musicians. Selamnesh joined the band as lead vocalist in 2018, just in time for two European tours, where she received much critical acclaim as one of the dual front-women of the group.
Anteneh (Bubu) Teklemariam fell in love with the sound of the kraar at an early age, taking lessons at a local NGO from the age of 16. Soon after he joined his first band, and has been playing ever since — performing on countless recordings with many of the leading Ethiopian traditional bands and Orthodox Koptic Christian artists. A composer as well as a musician, Bubu is a prolific songwriter, whose music and lyrics often contain spiritual and socially conscious messages on environmental issues or Ethiopian identity.
Together these musical adventurers honed a fresh, new sound that’s rooted in centuries old traditions, yet exploratory, open and future-facing. Since their founding in 2012, QWANQWA has emerged as an integral and constant presence in Addis Ababa nightlife scene, and has released two critically-acclaimed albums, Volume One (2014) and Volume Two (2015); with Volume Three due for release in September, 2020.
They’ve taken their sound international, too, rocking audiences on two major European tours with knockout shows at the Roskilde and WOMEX festivals in 2016 and 2017. Members of QWANQWA have also appeared internationally with some of the biggest names in Ethiopian music and beyond: Getachew Mekuria, The EX, Thurston Moore, Fred Frith, Butch Morris, Debo Band, Nile Project, Paal Nilsson-Love, Fendika, Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatke, Addis Acoustic, Ethiocolor, Atse Teodros, Mohammed “Jimmy” Mohammed, and Imperial Tiger Orchestra, and have played stages from Lincoln Center to Bonnaroo, Jazzfest (New Orleans), Moers Festival, Roskilde, WOMEX, WOMAD and more.
Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) is a timely movie that reflects on Ethiopia's ancient and culturally-rooted legal system that stands in contrast to today's constitution, which borrows heavily from Western traditions to meet "international standards." (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: June 1st, 2020
New York (TADIAS) – Last week Tadias collaborated with Habeshaview — the first international Ethiopian film distribution company — to co-host a virtual Q&A with the cast and crew of the award-winning film Enchained (ቁራኛዬ). The Zoom program, which was moderated by BBC journalist Hewete Haileselassie, featured the film’s director, Dr. Moges Tafesse, actors Zerihun Mulatu and Yemesrach Girma as well as cinematographer Billy Mekonnen who joined the Q&A live from Addis Abeba.
Enchained is a timely movie that reflects on Ethiopia’s ancient and culturally-rooted legal system that stands in contrast to today’s constitution that borrows heavily from Western traditions to meet “international standards.” Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) makes us question what exactly is that “standard” anyway. How about the organic legal concepts and systems that today are largely ignored, disregarded and unappreciated, but once held the Ethiopian society together long before we heard of the British Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution?
“Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) discusses the commonly practiced justice process during the early and mid-19th Century in Ethiopia, where institutional punitive prison did not exist, and the justice process was restorative,” the announcement states. “This practice has now been largely forgotten.” The film also features Ethiopian traditions while also highlighting age-old human behavior when it comes to love, sex, betrayal, jealousy and the desire for justice.
Below is the video of the Q&A session with the cast and crew of Enchained (ቁራኛዬ):
— Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) is currently available to watch on Habeshaview.com.
Director Moges Tafesse and Lead Actor Zerihun Mulatu, as well as other main characters, will join a discussion moderated by BBC journalist Hewete Haileselassie following a virtual screening of the film Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) on May 24th. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: May 18th, 2020
New York (TADIAS) – This coming Sunday on May 24th the cast and crew of the award-winning Ethiopian film Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) will participate in a live Zoom Q&A session from Addis Ababa answering questions from audiences around the world including the Ethiopian Diaspora community in the U.S.
The film’s Director Moges Tafesse and Lead Actor Zerihun Mulatu, as well as other main characters, will also join the discussion from Ethiopia. The virtual event, which is hosted by Habeshaview in collaboration with Tadias, will be moderated by BBC journalist Hewete Haileselassie.
“Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) discusses the commonly practiced justice process of early and mid-19th Century in Ethiopia, where institutional punitive prison did not exist, and the justice process was restorative,” the announcement states. “This practice has now been largely forgotten. Enchained sold out shows in Addis Ababa, London, New York and Washington DC. It was also selected as the opening film at the New African Film Festival, Silver Spring Maryland in March 2020.”
“Following the digital release of Enchained, we are delighted to announce that in collaboration with the New York online magazine, Tadias, we will be co-hosting an exclusive virtual discussion about the film with invited guests, cast and crew,” added Tigist Kebede, Co-Founder & Operations Director of Habeshaview.
“Let’s come together and spend this time to have an open discussion about love, justice, culture and poetry – all in one place!”
The movie Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) is currently available to watch on Habeshaview.
Opening with acclaimed historical drama 'Enchained' from Ethiopia, this year's New African Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland features 39 films from 25 countries. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: February 20th, 2020
Two Ethiopian Movies – ‘Enchained’ & ‘Anbessa’ – at 2020 New African Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland
New York (TADIAS) — The new historical drama Enchained (ቁራኛዬ), that won awards in Best Film, Best Actor and Best Actress categories at Ethiopia’s 2019 Leza Awards, will be screened during opening night of the 2020 New African Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland next month. The festival is scheduled to take place at the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center from March 5th to 19th.
In addition to Enchained the festival will also feature the documentary movie titled Anbessa, which highlights the underreported environmental and humanitarian issues related to Ethiopia’s booming housing and construction industry.
“The New African Film Festival is presented by The American Film Institute (AFI), Africa World Now Project and afrikafé, and showcases the vibrancy of African filmmaking from all corners of the continent and across the diaspora,” organizers said in a press statement. “Now in its 16th year, the festival brings the best in contemporary African cinema to the Washington, DC, area.”
Below are descriptions and trailers of the two Ethiopian films courtesy of AFI:
ENCHAINED [QURAGNAYE] [ቁራኛዬ]
Thurs, March 5, 7:15 p.m.; also screens Wed, March 11, 9:30 p.m. Q&A with director Moges Tafesse on March 5
In this lush historical drama set in 1916 Ethiopia, Gobeze (Zerihun Mulatu) is a timid, peace-loving literature student who has dedicated his life to studying Sem Ina Werq — riddles with dual meaning. After spending years searching for his first love, Aleme (Yimisirach Girma), who was abducted seven years earlier, he finally finds her married to Gonite (Tesfaye Yiman), a wealthy judge and landlord. When Gonite catches the two reunited lovers, a fight ensues. Following tradition, the feuding men are bound together, and, side by side, must make the long journey to stand trial in the royal court. “Combining breathtaking landscapes with superb performances, filmmaker Moges Tafesse takes the audience on a tense and moving journey suffused with passion, jealousy and bitter anger toward the traditional Ethiopian establishment.” – Filmuforia. Winner, Best Film, Best Actor and Best Actress, 2019 Leza Awards. Official Selection, 2019 African Diaspora International Film Festival. DIR/SCR/PROD Moges Tafesse. Ethiopia, 2019, color, 97 min. In Amharic and Ge’ez with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Watch: Enchained ቁራኛዬ | Official Trailer
ANBESSA
Co-presented by the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital
Mon, March 16, 7:15 p.m.
Ancient Ethiopian farmlands are increasingly being cleared for dense condo development. Ten-year-old Asalif and his mother have already been displaced from their homestead to the outskirts of sprawling capital Addis Ababa, and it seems looming cranes are closing in on them again. With little to do, Asalif scavenges wires and bulbs from sprawling construction sites to literally keep the lights on in their makeshift house. Pushed around by new kids in the neighborhood, the sensitive child retreats into his imagination — the only place where he can rage like a lion against the forces he can’t control. Old enough to sense impending realities but still innocent enough to play, Asalif provides an irresistibly tender foil for the city’s coming-of-age story. A rare and thoroughly beautiful docufiction hybrid, ANBESSA observes the ever-forward march of progress with true originality. (Note adapted from Hot Docs Film Festival.) Official Selection, 2019 Berlin, IDFA, Hot Docs and Durban film festivals. DIR/SCR/PROD Mo Scarpelli; PROD Caitlin Mae Burke. Ethiopia/Italy/U.S., 2019, color, 85 min. In Amharic with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Watch: Anbessa | Trailer
— If you go:
2020 NEW AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL
MARCH 5–19, 2020
AFI SILVER THEATRE AND CULTURAL CENTER
8633 Colesville Road
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301.495.6700
More info at www.afisilver.afi.com
New York (TADIAS) — Poet, Author and Motivational Speaker Lemn Sissay who is the guest director for this year’s Brighton Festival — the biggest annual multi-arts festival in England — has announced the 2020 program that’s set to take place from May 2nd to 24th.
In addition to the British-Ethiopian poet as curator the festival program features several acclaimed Ethiopian and Ethiopian-American artists, musicians, and writers including Maaza Mengiste and Aida Edemariam as well as founder of Ethio-jazz Mulatu Astatke and pianist & composer Samuel Yirga. The lineup also includes British–Eritrean writer and journalist Hannah Azieb Pool.
“With Lemn as this year’s guest director, the festival will feature more than 120 events taking place in 27 venues and locations across the region,” notes the Sussex Express newspaper. “At the heart of it all will be a focus on artists experimenting and creating new work. The Festival will feature 17 premieres, exclusives, commissions and co-productions, alongside many Festival debuts from international artists.”
The paper adds: “Lemn’s personal passions flow throughout the 2020 programme, connected by a love of words and language across theatre, song, spoken word, art and poetry. Contemporary writers and poets are given a particular spotlight with several spoken word and book events.”
The program also includes an art exhibition titled ‘The Young Americans’ highlighting a new generation of Indigenous American artists in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s journey. The show is produced in collaboration with the Phoenix, Arizona-based Gallery Rainmaker and “reveals what it means to grow up in the contemporary United States.”
Lemn Sissay says the Festival is all encompassing. “There’s going to be something for you in this Festival,” he said. “Broaden your horizons, be open and maybe try something different. Welcome to the Imagine Nation, welcome to the whole world in one celebration here at Brighton Festival 2020.”
The film entitled ‘Enchained', which is is set to make its U.S. debut in New York City during NY African Diaspora International Film Festival on December 11th and December 15th, will also be screened at Landmark Theatres in Washington, D.C. on December 12th. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: December 2nd, 2019
New York (TADIAS) — This month, the award-winning new film from Ethiopia, Enchained (ቁራኛዬ) is coming to the United States. The U.S. screenings follow the film’s successful international premier in London this past October.
The film will make its U.S. debut in New York City during the NY African Diaspora International Film Festival on December 11th and December 15th, and will also be screened in Washington, D.C. on December 12th.
A review by Filmuforia notes: “Combining breath-taking landscapes with superb performances piqued by humour and irony,” Enchained “takes the audience by storm in a tense and moving ethnological drama suffused with passion, jealousy and bitter anger of the traditional Ethiopian establishment.”
Set in 1916 Enchained reflects on the age-old human behavior when it comes to love, sex, violence and the desire for vigilante justice, while also contemplating on Ethiopia’s judicial system of the day informed by local customs, values and traditions adjudicating conflict situations.
One of the film’s main characters “Gobeze is a timid, peace-loving, young man of 25; a brilliant student who dedicates his whole life to Sem Ina Werq (riddles with dual meaning),” explains the synopsis. “He spends seven years searching for his young love, Aleme, kidnapped from his arms. Finally finding her, two young lovers are caught by Gonite, her husband and a wealthy old landlord. Following the old Ethiopian tradition, both men’s clothes are bind together and the rivals set off on a long journey to the royal court to stand trial.”
Written and directed by Moges Tafesse, the film’s cast include Zerihun Mulatu as Gobeze, Yimisirach Girma as Aleme and Frehiwot Kelkilew as Queen Zewditu. (Screen shot)
(Courtesy photo)
(Courtesy photo)
The film’s director, Moges Tafesse, will be present for a Q & A session on December 15th during the New York screening that will be held at Columbia University’s Teachers College, as well as at the D.C. event at Landmark Theatres on December 12th.
—
If You Go
‘Enchained’ NY African Diaspora International Film Festival.
Teachers College, Columbia University
Wed Dec 11, 2019 at 6:00 pm
Sun Dec 15, 2019 at 4:00 pm
525 W 120th St, New York, NY 10027 Click here for more info and to buy tickets
Habesha View TV in collaboration with African Diaspora Film Festival’ is offering a 15% discount for the NYC screenings. Use this promo code: ‘habesha view.’ ‘Habesha View, which provides an IPTV service with contents focused on the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities worldwide, is the international distributor for Enchained film.
Washington D.C.
‘Enchained’ at Landmark Theatres / E Street Cinema
Thu Dec 12, 2019 at 6:30 pm
555 11th Street NW,
Entrance on E Street between 10th & 11th Streets
NW, Washington D.C., 20004 Click here for more info and to buy tickets
Written and directed by Moges Tafesse, the film's cast include Zerihun Mulatu as Gobeze, Yimisirach Girma as Aleme and Frehiwot Kelkilew as Queen Zewditu. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: October 8th, 2019
New York (TADIAS) — The award-winning new Ethiopian film entitled ‘Enchained’ (Quragaye) will make its international premiere in London this month.
According to the film’s synopsis: “In Ethiopia, kolo temari (wandering student) Gobeze is caught red-handed and in bed with Aleme, the wife of the temperamental landlord Gonite. Neighbors halt the ensuing fight and an elder binds together the two men’s clothes, symbolically chaining them together in the traditional judicial process of Atse Sirat, and tells them to stand trial in the queen’s court. Meanwhile, with the sudden death of the Emperor Minilik his daughter Zewditu Minilik, is crowned queen.”
Written and directed by Moges Tafesse, the film’s cast include Zerihun Mulatu as Gobeze, Yimisirach Girma as Aleme and Frehiwot Kelkilew as Queen Zewditu.
The synopsis adds: “Enchained during their long journey, the two men traverse a number of challenges including keeping each other safe so that the experienced litigator Gonite and the inexperienced student Gobeze can stand trial before the new ruler, Queen Zewditu, and be vindicated.”
The film focuses on age-old human behavior when it comes to love, sex, violence and the desire for vigilante justice while also reflecting on Ethiopia’s past traditional justice system that is informed by local customs, and values adjudicating conflict situations in addition to administering punishment fit for a crime.
The filmmakers note that the movie “attempts to illustrate the rift between the old oral all-encompassing system (which includes not just legal process but also social life, culture and politics) and modus operandi of law and the current confusion of law and justice within the current generation.” In other words, understanding the past is the key to shaping the future.
The premiere in London, which is set to open on Saturday, October 19th at Rich Mix Cinema, promises to be a star-studded, red carpet event hosted by Habeshaview TV and includes a Q&A with film Director Moges Tafesse and leading actor Zerihun Mulatu.
— If You Go:
International Premiere of ‘Enchained’ (Quragaye) a Moges Tafesse Film.
Saturday 19th October 2019
Red Carpet Arrivals: 6:30pm – Drinks Reception, Meet & Greet Stars
Screening: 8:00pm – Followed by Q&A with film Director Moges Tafesse and leading actor Zerihun Mulatu, Drinks & Canape – £20 (18+)
Followed by subsequent screenings
Sunday, 20th October 2019
14:00 – £12.95 Adults | Children £6 + BF (12+)
Wednesday, 23rd October 2019
20:00 – £12.95 Adults | Children £6 + BF (12 +)
WHERE:
Rich Mix Cinema London 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, E1 6LA Click here to purchase Tickets
More info at: events@habeshaview.com
World Music Institute (WMI) celebrates Ethiopian New Year with a documentary screening of Éthiopiques: Revolt of the Soul on September 11th at the National Jazz Museum, and an NYC debut show by legendary artist Girma Bèyènè and Akalé Wubé on September 12, 2019 at (Le) Poisson Rouge. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: September 5th, 2019
New York (TADIAS) — In celebration of Enkutatash (Ethiopian New Year) this month the World Music Institute (WMI) in New York City is hosting a special concert on September 12th featuring the NYC debut of legendary artist Girma Bèyènè and French band Akalé Wubé at (Le) Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, Manhattan). Girma is also featured in the documentary film Éthiopiques: Revolt of the Soul, which will be screened at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on September 11th.
“Éthiopiques: Revolt of the Soul is a film about the rise, fall and redemption of a group of spectacular Ethiopian jazz musicians who in the swinging 60’s ignited an explosive cultural revolution in Addis Ababa (“Swinging Addis”),” the announcement notes. “Their music was sublime but this golden era was brought to an end by the military regime that took over the country and forced the musicians into exile and jail. Now, after many years, they are back on a world stage, making up for lost time and still swinging.”
Girma Bèyènè’s show on September 12th accompanied by the french band Akalé Wubé, is a segment of WMI’s Masters of African Music series.
“Born in Addis Ababa, Girma Bèyènè is a composer, arranger, performer, bandleader, and a true legend of Ethiopian music,” WMI shared in the press release. “A contemporary of fellow musicians Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed, and Hailu Mergia, Girma is credited for arranging over 60 tracks in the 1960s and 70s in “Swinging Addis” during the Golden Era of Ethiopian music.”
WMI noted that Girma Bèyènè’s collaboration with Akalé Wubé also resulted in “the critically-acclaimed album Ethiopiques 30: Mistakes on Purpose,” which was Girma’s “first recording in 25 years.” This album was produced by Francis Falceto, who is known for creating the timeless Ethiopique album series.
— If You Go
World Music Institute Presents:
Girma Bèyènè and Akalé Wubé – Celebrating Ethiopian New Year’s Day
Thursday September 12th, 2019
7:30PM
Doors Open: 6:30PM
Show Time: 7:30PM
Event Ticket: $40 / $30 / $25
Day of Show: $35 Click here to buy tickets
Screening of Éthiopiques: Revolt of the Soul
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
National Jazz Museum in Harlem
58 W 129th St, Manhattan
(212) 348-8300 Click here to buy tickets
Sahle-Work Zewde leaves Parliament after being elected as Ethiopia's first female president, in Addis Ababa on Oct. 25, 2018. (Getty Images)
The Washington Post
By Paul Schemm
Ethiopia appoints first female president in its modern history in latest reform
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s Parliament on Thursday approved the East African country’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, a veteran of the United Nations and the diplomatic corps.
The position of president is ceremonial in Ethiopia, with executive power vested in the office of the prime minister. But the appointment is deeply symbolic and follows up on last week’s cabinet reshuffle. Half the ministers are now women in Africa’s second-most populous country.
“In a patriarchal society such as ours, the appointment of a female head of state not only sets the standard for the future but also normalizes women as decision-makers in public life,” tweeted Fitsum Arega, the prime minister’s chief of staff and de facto government spokesman.
Parliament accepted the resignation of Mulatu Teshome, who had served as president since 2013.
In remarks to Parliament after she took her oath of office, Sahle-Work emphasized the importance of respecting women and the need to build a “society that rejects the oppression of women.” She also promised to work for peace and unity in the country.
The latest episode of the Helen Show on EBS TV features a timely topic: professional women
and motherhood. The show’s host Helen Mesfin speaks with Mimi Hailegiorghis, who is
a Department Head of Systems Performance Engineering at Mitre Corporation, & Tseday Alehegn,
Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Tadias Magazine.
President Mulatu Teshome (left) hosting dinner for members of parliament on October 8th, 2018. (Photo: Twitter @fitsumaregaa)
Africa News
Ethiopia to Reform Judicial System, Amend Repressive Laws: President
Ethiopia will reform several laws that are widely perceived to having had a detrimental effect on human rights and democracy, according to a speech delivered by the country’s president Mulatu Teshome.
Fitsum Arega, the chief of staff in the prime minister’s office said the president tasked the country’s lawmakers as he outlined government’s plans for the next fiscal year on Monday.
‘‘The government will reform the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, the Charities and Societies Proclamation as well as various legislation having to do with the regulation of the media,’‘ Arega quoted the president on Twitter.
The overriding objective is to ensure that the norms and institutions established in these legislations are compatible with relevant international human rights standards. #Ethiopia
Discussions between government and opposition parties to amend provisions the controversial anti-terrorism law in May.
Human rights group have previously accused the state of using the law’s broad definitions against anyone who opposes government policies.
Human Rights Watch has previously said the law “grants authorities the power to prosecute journalists who publish articles about protest movements, armed opposition groups, or any other individuals deemed as terrorist or anti-peace”.
Mulatu Astatke accepting the Bikila Lifetime Achievement Award in Toronto, Canada in 2017. (Photo courtesy: Bikila Award, Inc.)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: August 31st, 2018
New York (TADIAS) — What do Mulatu Astatke, The Weeknd, Miruts Yifter and the Pankhurst family have in common? They are all recipients of the Bikila Award.
Named after the legendary Olympian marathoner Abebe Bikila the annual award ceremony organized by members of the Ethiopian Diaspora in Toronto, Canada showcases inspiring achievements of the Ethiopian community from the arts to academia and sports.
The 2018 Bikila Award celebration and dinner will be held on Saturday, September 22nd at Chestnut Residence and Conference Center in Toronto.
Celebrating its fifth year the Bikila Award ceremony “has become one of the most anticipated events in the African-Canadian community calendar,” organizers said in a press release. The event “draws hundreds of attendees from within and outside of the Ethiopian-Canadian community.”
This year the winner of the Bikila Lifetime Achievement Award is philologist and world-renowned scholar of the Ge’ez language Professor Getatchew Haile. In addition, the Bikila Award will honor Dr. Catherine Hamlin, Founder of the Addis Ababa Hamlin Fistula hospital with the Medical & Humanitarian Services Award, as well as Dr. Siegbert Uhlig a distinguished Professor Emeritus of African and Ethiopian Studies at Hamburg University in Germany who will receive the Professional Excellence Award. Professor Uhlig founded the Journal of Aethiopica, and as Editor-in-Chief launched five volumes of Encyclopaedia Aethiopica focusing on Ethiopian studies and involving contributions from hundreds of scholars hailing from approximately 30 countries.
Other 2018 honorees include Bethlehem Tilahun, Founder of soleRebels (Business Excellence Award); Professor Tessema Astatke (Professional Excellence Award) in recognition of his primary research areas that designed linear and nonlinear regression and nonlinear time series modeling; and Benyam Belete (Community Service Excellence Award) as founder of Mekedonia, a philanthropic organization in Addis Ababa that provides services for elderly and mentally disabled individuals.
The Academic Excellence & Scholarship Award goes to students Ednah Negatu, Semir Bulle, Zatty Tameru and Caleb Jara.
Professor Mammo Muchie, a renowned Pan Africanist, currently a Professor of Innovation Studies at the Institute of Economics Research on Innovation at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa is the keynote speaker. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Adama Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa University, University of Gondar and Arsi University in Ethiopia.
The 2018 honorary guest speaker will be journalist, novelist and playwright Jeff Pearce who is the author of Prevail – a book about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Pearce connected with survivors of the Italo-Ethiopian War in the 1930s and 40s and discovered additional records of Britain’s role from the London archives. Prevail is now being adapted into a documentary feature film.
— If You Go:
The 2018 Bikila Award Celebration and Dinner
Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Chestnut Residence and Conference Center,
89 Chestnut Street,
Toronto, Canada www.bikilaaward.org
Related: Photos from past Bikila Award Ceremonies:
Previous winners of the Bikila award include Mulatu Astatke, Ethiopian-Canadian pop music superstar Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), Miruts Yifter, one of the greatest middle distance runners of all-time who died in 2016 at the age of 72, as well as Dr. Taffara Deguefe and the Pankhurst Family who were honored two years ago with the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award. (Courtesy photographs)
Bekele Gerba was released from prison on Tuesday after the authorities dismissed all charges against him. Bekele’s release came amid a three-day strike across Oromiya province as well as a mass pardoning of dissidents by the government aimed at reducing unrest that has simmered since 2015. (Photograph: Bekele Gerba at the NPR office in D.C., August 2015/NPR)
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia released a senior opposition leader from prison on Tuesday and dropped all charges against him, a day after demonstrators blocked roads and staged rallies in several towns to protest against his incarceration.
Bekele Gerba, secretary general of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), was arrested in December 2015 after mass protests broke out in the Oromiya region over accusations that farmers were being forced to sell land with scant compensation.
He had been held initially on terrorism charges, which were later reduced to charges of incitement to violence.
“He just walked out of prison. We have confirmed that all charges against him have been dropped,” Mulatu Gemechu, a member of the OFC’s leadership told Reuters.
State-affiliated media confirmed that Bekele had been freed along with seven other opposition figures, and that the charges against him had been dropped. Ethiopia’s information minister was not available for comment.
Ayalew Mesfin's first vinyl compilation, Hasabe (My Worries), was released online on January 23rd, 2018 and featured by record of the month club, Vinyl Me Please. (Courtesy photos)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
January 24th, 2018
New York (TADIAS) — One of the great voices of Ethiopia’s golden age of music, Ayalew Mesfin, has been revived with the release of his first vinyl compilation entitled Hasabe (My Worries).
“Ayalew Mesfin Chufa [who is originally from the historical Wollo region], professionally known as Ayalew Mesfin, is an Ethiopian musician of the highest caliber. His voice is as pliable and emotive as those of the country’s ‘70s stars, like Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete and Tilahoun Gessesse, three singers who came to prominence shortly before he did, but who are now considered his peers,” the record company Vinyl Me, Please, which issued the album in partnership with Now Again records, said in an announcement.”
“The music he forged with his Black Lion Band is amongst the funkiest to arise from Addis Ababa; his recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this unconquerable East African nation.”
Ayalew will be accompanied by the Ethiopian American group, Debo Band, as he launches his U.S. West Coast tour in February 2018 with stops in Los Angeles and Berkeley in California, and his now hometown of Denver, Colorado.
Ayalew Mesfin (Courtesy photos)
(Courtesy photo)
The majority of Ayalew Mesfin’s albums were recored between 1975 and 1977. “This was the era when Mesfin founded the Black Lion Band and succeeded in creating one of the greatest discographies of Ethiopia’s 1970s,” the press release notes. “His is the last bastion of unheard Ethio-groove, and the culmination of decades of modernization in Ethiopian music.”
Eothen Alapatt, Founder of Now-Again Records says: “With “Hasabe: My Worries,” we make the case that Ayalew’s music deserves to be in the canon of Ethiopias 70s greats, from Mulatu Astatke to Mahmoud Ahmed to Alemeayehu Eshete. And we attempt to show how a century of political tumult and musical revolution came together in this unconquerable East African nation to make some of the most compelling music of the latter half of the 20th century: Ethio-Groove, still thrilling and vibrant when heard as new, today. ”
Meklit Hadero's latest album ‘When the People Move the Music Moves Too,' which was taped in Ethiopia and the U.S. receives a big thumbs up among the 10 Best Albums of 2017 by the San Francisco Bay Area television station KQED. (Photo: Instagram)
The 10 Best Bay Area Albums of 2017: Meklit, ‘When the People Move the Music Moves Too’
Oakland singer-songwriter Meklit has belted out funk with James Brown’s saxophonist, covered indie rock hits with sweet soulman Quinn DeVeaux, and collaborated with musicians from across Northeast Africa for the Nile Project, a visionary NGO she co-founded. Her translucent voice finds a cozy home in every far-flung setting, but she’s never sounded as free and grounded as on When the People Move the Music Moves Too, which was released this past June on Six Degrees Records.
A creative breakthrough born out of bandstand experimentation, the album weaves together Meklit’s Ethiopian roots with a propulsive menagerie of African-diaspora grooves. As the album’s title suggests, Meklit captures the way culture and beats evolve as people move across regions and continents. Her lyrics evoke the love and ache for worlds left behind, but tracks like the soaring opener “This Was Made Here” also speak to the ecstatic power of self-reinvention.
Recorded in Addis Ababa, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and San Francisco, the album is a collaboration with Grammy Award-winning LA songwriter and producer Dan Wilson, renowned for his work with Adele, the Dixie Chicks, and Taylor Swift. Rather than trying to fit the uncategorizable Meklit into a neat, pop niche, he expands her textural palette with guest artists Andrew Bird (on violin and whistling), the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and top-shelf session players from LA.
Seminal Ethiopian vibraphonist-composer Mulatu Astatke once instructed Meklit to find her own voice beyond Ethio-jazz. With When the People Move, she’s clearly risen to the challenge…
Read more »
Detained Ethiopian opposition chief bailed two years after protests: party
ADDIS ABABA – An Ethiopian opposition leader was due to be released on bail almost two years after he was detained during mass protests over land rights, a member of his party said on Monday.
Bekele Gerba, secretary general of the Oromo Federalist Congress, was arrested in December 2015 as activists stepped up demonstrations accusing the government of seizing their land and passing it on to firms and developers.
Violence went on to spread across the Oromiya province that surrounds the capital Addis Ababa and is home to many foreign-owned businesses, drawn in by the government’s industrialisation push.
Bekele would walk free late Monday or early Tuesday after the high court granted him 30,000 birr ($1,110) bail, the party’s current deputy leader, Mulatu Teshome, told Reuters.
Bekele, who denies all wrongdoing, was initially charged with involvement in terrorism and collusion with the secessionist Oromo Liberation Front, which the government has branded a terrorist group.
A court reduced those charges to inciting violence in August, but denied him bail…
The 4th annual Bikila Award ceremony takes place in Toronto, Canada on Sept. 23, 2017. (Bikila Award Org)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
September 11th, 2017
New York (TADIAS) — This year’s Bikila Award recipients include musician and composer Mulatu Astatke who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Miruts Yifter, one of the greatest middle distance runners of all-time who died last year at the age of 72, will be recognized posthumously with the Professional Excellence Award “for his distinguished and legendary achievement in long distance running and as a world class athlete, double Olympic Gold winner and Ethiopian hero.”
The annual award ceremony and dinner, which takes place every September in Toronto, Canada, is named for the iconic marathon Olympian Abebe Bikila who captured the world’s imagination on September 10th, 1960 when he stormed the Rome Olympics barefoot becoming the first African to win an Olympic gold and setting a world record.
Organizers note that the Bikila Award “is created mainly to empower young people to reach their highest potential and to celebrate their achievements with the 2017 Academic Excellence and Scholarship Award given to students Wudassie Tamrat, Yonas Nigussie, Sarah Edo and Dagmawit Aberham.
In addition, Bikila Award, Inc. states that it will honor Dr. Edemariam Tsega and Dr. Frances Lester Tsega with the Professional Excellence Award for their “distinguished achievement as compassionate and dedicated physicians, and for playing a key leadership role in advancing medical care and education in Ethiopia and Canada.” The 2017 event will also recognize Dr. Enawgaw Mehari with the Community Service Excellence Award “for his philanthropic contributions in founding People to People (P2P) as a dedicated practicing physician, and for improving healthcare awareness and education,” as well as Dr. Fitsum Tariku who will be given the Professional Excellence Award “for his distinguished achievement as a scholar and researcher in building engineering, whole-building performance analysis and hygrothermal modeling.”
Photos from past Bikila Award Ceremonies:
Previous winners of the Bikila award include Ethiopian-Canadian pop music superstar Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) as well as Dr. Taffara Deguefe and the Pankhurst Family who were honored last year with the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award. (Courtesy photographs)
The keynote address this year will be delivered by Ted Alemayhu, Founder and Executive Chairman of US Doctors for Africa (USDFA), while the honorary guest speaker is Professor Suzanne Akbari who is the Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. Professor Akbari has played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Ethiopic studies program at the University of Toronto, the first of its kind in North America.
Entertainment will be provided by Barnes/Woldemichael Ethio Jazz Quartet.
— If You Go:
The 2017 Bikila Award Celebration and Dinner
September 23rd, 2017
At Daniels Spectrum
585 Dundas Street East
Toronto, Canada www.bikilaaward.org
Meklit Hadero's album cover "When the People Move, the Music Moves Too" (courtesy image).
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
June 19th, 2017
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian American singer and composer Meklit Hadero will be performing in Washington DC on June 20th and in New York City on June 21st as Six Degrees Records releases her latest album entitled When the People Move, the Music Moves Too. This past May we shared her video single “I Want to Sing For Them All” as featured on Vibe Magazine.
Meklit’s new album was composed after a chance meeting in Addis Ababa with Mulatu Astatke, the legendary Ethio-Jazz musician, composer and vibraphonist. “He was very pointed with me, saying several times ‘You keep innovating!’” she recalls. “He took me to task and.. it took me a while to digest that. It’s a big thing to have someone like that say that to you. I sat with it for a couple of years.”
Having first launched her music career in the mid-2000s, Meklit has since released five records, been named a TED Global Fellow and was an artist-in-residence at De Young Museum, Red Poppy Art House and New York University. She is the Co-Founder of the popular international group, Nile Project, which brings together musicians from 11 countries in the Nile Basin to tour and perform. She is also Founder of the Arba Minch Collective composed of Diaspora-based Ethiopian artists looking to collaborate with colleagues residing in their native homeland. Meklit performed at the concert inaugurating the UN Campaign for Gender Equality in Africa, and currently sits on the Board of the San Francisco Chapter of The Recording Academy, the organization that puts together the annual Grammy awards ceremony.
Meklit’s upcoming album, produced by Grammy-winner Dan Wilson, is also accompanied by the Ethiopian-born pianist Kibrom Birhane who is based in Los Angeles.
“I am an immigrant, so I guess you could say this is immigrant music,” Meklit says, speaking of her new work. “But I would not be who I am without Jazz, and Blues and Hip-Hop and Soul. This music is Ethio-American, just like me. I find joy in the bigness of that space.”
— If You Go:
Album Release Concert (When the People Move, the Music Moves Too)
June 20th, 2017
Washington DC
Tropicalia (click here for tickets)
2001 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009
June 21st, 2017
New York City
Nublu (click here for tickets)
62 Avenue C, New York, NY 10009
This story about The Weeknd (Abel Makkonen Tesfaye) an Ethiopian-Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer appears in the June 29, 2017 issue of Forbes Magazine. (Photo: Jamel Toppin)
Inside The Weeknd’s $92 Million Year–And The New Streaming Economy Behind It
Five years ago, Spotify was a fledgling music-streaming service only months removed from its U.S. launch and YouTube had just started its push into original programming; Netflix was a year away from doing the same, starting with House of Cards. For the members of the Celebrity 100–our annual accounting of the top-earning entertainers on the planet–meaningful streaming income was a distant dream.
But sometimes profound change happens quickly. Streaming is now the dominant platform for music consumption, and it’s growing rapidly–up 76% year-over-year, according to Nielsen. YouTube has birthed a whole new breed of celebrity: the YouTube star. And Netflix plans to spend hundreds of millions annually on original content.
“It’s not just about music–it’s about every form of entertainment,” Nielsen’s David Bakula says. “You don’t really have to own anything anymore, because for $10 a month you can do this: You can have everything.”
Full List: The World’s Highest-Paid Celebrities
The indirect spoils of streaming can be even greater. Abel “the Weeknd” Tesfaye parlayed his play count–5.5 billion streams in the past two years–into an estimated $75 million touring advance. To him it’s all part of the model he’s been following throughout his rapid rise, one that applies to all sorts of businesses: Create an excellent product, make it widely available and flip the monetization switch when the timing is right.
“I really wanted people who had no idea who I was to hear my project,” he says. “You don’t do that by asking for money.”
Steve Jobs would have been the logical choice to headline the launch of Apple’s eponymous streaming service, but by the time the tech giant rolled out Apple Music two years ago, he was busy putting dents into faraway universes. In his place was a pair of young musicians who walk the line between hip-hop, pop and R&B: Drake and the Weeknd. The latter stunned the crowd with the first-ever live performance of his new single “I Can’t Feel My Face,” which premiered on Apple Music and has generated more than 1.5 billion spins across all streaming platforms.
The Weeknd knows as well as anyone that streaming isn’t the future of music–it’s the present. As digital downloads and physical sales plummet, streaming is increasing overall music consumption–since their Apple appearances, Drake (No. 4 on our list at $94 million) and The Weeknd (No. 6, $92 million) have clocked a combined 17.5 billion streams–and that creates other kinds of monetization, including touring revenue.
“We live in a world where artists don’t really make the money off the music like we did in the Golden Age,” says the Weeknd, 27. “It’s not really coming in until you hit the stage.
Ready for the Weeknd: Boosted by the ubiquity of his music, he’s now grossing north of
$1.1 million per stop on his Starboy: Legend of the Fall World Tour. (Forbes)
Ethiopian-American artist Meklit will release her new album When the People Move, the Music Moves Too on June 23rd with Six Degrees Records. The record was produced by Dan Wilson, whose previous work with artists including Adele, Taylor Swift and John Legend – as well as fronting the band Semisonic – has earned multiple Grammy awards. The album also includes Andrew Bird on violin and whistling, as well as New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band horns. A vibrant and inspired mix of Ethio-Jazz roots along with American pop, R&B and folk influences, Meklit’s upcoming record crosses both musical and generational borders to create a unified artistic vision, united behind her unique and unmistakable voice.
When the People Move, the Music Moves Too is the result of a fateful encounter Meklit experienced in Addis Ababa with the legendary vibraphonist/composer Mulatu Astatke, who helped spark Ethiopia’s 1960s musical renaissance. She was deeply engaged with his music at the time, but he pushed her to think about how to bring her own experiences into her songs. “He was very pointed with me, saying several times ‘You keep innovating!’” she recalls. “He took me to task and he tasked me. It took me a while to digest that. It’s a big thing to have someone like that say that to you. I sat with it for a couple of years.”
Meklit has embodied multiplicity since she first started performing at San Francisco’s Red Poppy Art House in the mid-2000′s. Born in Ethiopia, she moved with her family to Iowa at the age of two, and spent much of her adolescence in Brooklyn, soaking up the sounds of hip hop on the street. After studying political science at Yale she spent several years in Seattle before moving to San Francisco, looking to immerse herself in the city’s thriving arts scene.
“I’m always thinking about America and Ethiopia, about how the hybridization is going to work in both places,” she observes. The lapidary orchestrations on her new record were created by Meklit herself, with the help of her bassist Sam Bevan. But Meklit is quick to credit Dan Wilson’s lithe musical mind with a major role in shaping the ultimate sound of the record, in addition to his contribution of co-writing two songs. A prolific songwriter, arranger and producer, Wilson seemed to know exactly which player to place where to accentuate Meklit’s sound. He brought in Ethio-Cali’s tenor saxophonist Randall Fisher, who plays a perfectly calibrated Ethio-jazz intro on “You Got Me.” And Ethiopian-born, LA-based keyboardist Kibrome Birhane’s spare piano work levitates “Yesterday is a Tizita.” Meklit describes how Wilson’s songwriting precision, and razor sharp, generous feedback helped to weave a remarkable clarity into the music, enhancing Meklit’s already vivid hues.
She sang for Haile Selassie then retreated from the world, living barefoot in a hilltop monastery, perfecting her bluesy, freewheeling sound. (Photograph: Gali Tibbon)
The Extraordinary Life of Ethiopia’s 93-year-old Singing Nun
I’m no great singer, but Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou only really trusted me after I had sung to her. “Something from your country,” she instructed. So I found myself in the tiny bedroom of this 93-year-old Ethiopian composer-pianist-nun, croaking my way through the verses of a Robert Burns song.
Given she does not agree to most interviews, I felt I should do what I was told. The room, at the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Jerusalem, was cramped and sweltering. In it was a small bed, an upright piano draped in Ethiopian flags, stacks of reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, and a jumble of handwritten manuscripts. On the walls were portraits of Emperor Haile Selassie – Emahoy knew him in the 1930s – and her own paintings of religious icons. The door was propped open and, from the courtyard, came smells of food and the sound of monks chanting.
Emahoy is fluent in seven languages, but when I finished the Burns song (Ae Fond Kiss) she admitted the old Scots lyrics had been tricky to decipher. I gave her a potted translation – lovers meet, lovers part, lovers feel brokenhearted – and she gripped my arm and fixed me with one of her deep stares. “We can’t always choose what life brings,” she said. “But we can choose how to respond.”
If anyone is qualified to dish out such wisdom, it’s a woman whose choices were determined by religious self-exile, maverick gender struggles and Ethiopia’s dramatic 20th-century political history – and who became a singular artist in the process.
Most people familiar with Emahoy’s music come across it via her solo piano album released in 2006, as part of the Éthiopiques collection. That series put her poised, bluesy, freewheeling waltzes together with the Ethio-jazz that emerged out of Addis Ababa in the 1960s – and although she smiles fondly at the mention of fellow Éthiopiques musicians such as Mulatu Astatke and Alemayehu Eshete, she insists she’s not a jazz artist. Her training is purely western classical; her inspiration comes from the ancient modal chants of the Orthodox church. It’s a unique fusion and it sounds like nothing else.
Ethiopia In Crisis: A forum at Stanford University featuring scholars, human rights advocates, politicians, and media representatives is scheduled for January 21 – 22, 2017 in Stanford, California. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Thursday, January 19th, 2017
New York (TADIAS) — This weekend a public forum will be held at Stanford University in California highlighting some of the most pressing and unresolved issues fueling the ongoing political and economic crisis in Ethiopia while currently under State of Emergency including “land and agriculture policy, property rights, human rights, democracy, and rule of law.”
According to the Ethiopian American Council (EAC), the program organizer, the gathering of scholars and activists include Mulatu Wubneh, Ph.D., Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina whose talk is entitled “This Land Is My Land: the Ethio-Sudan Boundary and the Need to Rectify Arbitrary Colonial Boundaries.”
Other speakers are Mekonnen Firew Ayano, Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for African Studies, who is scheduled to address “Ethiopia’s Property Rights, Land and Agriculture Policy” and Felix Horne, a Senior Horn of Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, is set to discuss “Human Rights Crisis in the Amhara and Oromia Regions of Ethiopia.”
The Executive Director of The Oakland Institute, Anuradha Mittal, is also scheduled to discuss “The Risk of Land Grabbing From Ethiopian Villagers and its Impact on Food Security.” Additional presentation topics include “access to food, democracy, human rights, and the ethnic federal system in Ethiopia.”
The keynote speakers at the forum are Professor Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, as well as Professor Richard A. Joseph from Northwestern University’s Political Science Department who is among the four inaugural Martin Luther King Visiting Professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
— If You Go:
January 21 – 22, 2017
Stanford University
Jordan Hall, Building 01-420
450 Serra Mall,
Stanford, California
Sponsors: Center for African Studies, BSU, SASA, and SEESA Click here to learn more and RSVP
Mahmoud Ahmed performed live at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Sunday, October 23rd, 2016, becoming the first major artist from Ethiopia to give a solo concert at the world-famous venue. The 75-year-old Ethiopian cultural icon, who is one of Ethiopia’s most eminent musicians, played at Carnegie’s Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage and brought the audience to its feet for several songs. Read more and see photos »
34-year-old Ethiopian-born actress Ruth Negga has become the talk of Hollywood and Oscar mentions following her highly acclaimed performance in the new civil rights movie Loving, which depicts the 1967 historic U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in a case called “Loving v. Virginia.” Ruth who was born in Addis Ababa grew-up in Limerick, Ireland and has resided in London for the past ten years. Asked by The Hollywood Reporter on how she became an actress, Negga replied: “You know when you’re a kid and you get to pick a movie every Friday? I watched everything. There’s no particular genre that was appealing. I just loved the idea that you could dress up and play.” This month Vogue magazine declared “the Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga has become a star for our time.” Read more and see photos »
Photographer Girma Berta, an instagrammer and artist from Ethiopia, was the winner of the 2016 Getty Images Instagram Grant. “Berta uses his iPhone to photograph vibrant, gritty street life in Addis Ababa, crossing street photography with fine art by isolating his subjects against backdrops of rich color,” Getty Images said. The grant is for videographers and visual artists who feature local stories and document “underrepresented communities around the world.” Read more and see photos »
Mulatu Astatke returned to New York City for a live show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 9th, 2016. The concert, which was part of the MetLiveArts program, was presented in collaboration with the World Music Institute. “Known as the father of Ethio-jazz, composer and multi-instrumentalist (vibraphone, piano, keyboard, organs, and percussion) Mulatu Astatke leaped to international fame in the ’70s and ’80s with his unique mix of Western traditional Ethiopian music and admirers like Duke Ellington and John Coltrane,” stated the announcement from The Met. “Known for his fearless experimentation, his music begins and ends with improvisation.”
Thank you again to everyone who joined us on Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 for a sold out Tadias Salon Series show at Ginny’s Supper Club as Lemn Sissay shared his incredible life journey & poems from his new book Gold From the Stone, and Grammy-nominated Ethiopian American singer and songwriter Wayna (@waynamusic) gave a soul-shaking music performance, along with DJ Mengie. Special thanks to Marcus Samuelsson and Ethiopia Alfred as well as our sponsors for making it happen.
Ethiopian Pianist and Composer Girma Yifrashewa at Ginny’s Supper Club in New York on Sunday, November 27th, 2016. (Photo: Tadias)
This year the Thanksgiving weekend program at Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem, New York featured a special Ethiopia-inspired dinner menu prepared by Chef Marcus Samuelsson followed by a live performance by classical Ethiopian pianist and composer Girma Yifrashewa. Girma’s amazing concert on Sunday, November 27th, 2016 included his original compositions that evoke “Ethiopian melody making,” as he told the audience, “decorated” with sounds of the classical music tradition in combination with Ambassel, Bati, Anchihoye and Tizita based on Ethiopian music’s unique tone scale system. Read more and watch video »
(Photo: Owners of Azla Vegan Nesanet Teshager Abegaze and her mother Azla Mekonen at Coachella Festival in Los Angeles, California)
Los Angeles, California, which is home to the only official Little-Ethiopia neighborhood in America, is also headquarters for Azla Vegan, a family-owned Ethiopian restaurant — located near the University of Southern California (USC) — that we featured in 2013 in an interview with owner Nesanet Teshager Abegaze as it first opened. This year, Azla Vegan was featured on the Food Network‘s television episode of “Cosmopolitan Comfort: Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.” Read more and see photos »
Ethiopia-inspired furniture by U.S.-based Jomo Tariku, Founder of Jomo Design Furniture and Hamere Demissie of Actuel Urban Living was featured at the 2016 international Dubai Design Week festival in October. Jomo and Hamere’s works were selected as submissions from design weeks around the world including Design Week Addis Ababa, highlighting “the modern-inspired minimalist spirit of traditional Ethiopian design made locally by skilled artisans.” Hamere Demissie’s Actuel Urban Living previewed “a collection of furniture, rugs and textiles with a refined organic feel, while Jomo Design Furniture will display a contemporary take on traditional African chairs crafted in hardwoods, inspired by African hand carvings, baskets and traditional woven textiles,” according to the media release from Dubai Design Week.
Ethiopian American journalist Bofta Yimam was promoted as Weekend Morning Anchor at Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 Television in 2016.
Congratulations to Bofta Yimam who was promoted to Weekend Morning Anchor at Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 Television (WTAE) this year. Bofta received three Emmy nominations and won the Regional Emmy Award (Nashville/Mid-South Chapter) for excellence in the ‘Continuing Coverage’ category in 2013. “There are so many avenues of journalism that you have to put yourself out there, and have a kind of go-for-it type of mentality,” Bofta shared in a past interview with Tadias. “You gotta get the skill sets and be willing to hit the ground running.” Read more and watch video »
The new documentary film If Only I Were That Warrior — which chronicles the reactions of the international Ethiopian and Italian community regarding the recent building of a memorial for the Fascist General, Rodolfo Graziani (“The Butcher of Ethiopia”) in his hometown of Affile, Italy — has finally been released on DVD and is also now available for streaming online. Read more »
(Teddy Yo 2016 new music video ‘Alegntaye’ produced by Africology)
NYC-based music & entertainment company Africology this year released their first music video production entitled “Alegntaye” featuring popular Ethiopian hip-hop artist Teddy Yo and Joe Lox.
Renowned Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu returned to Ethiopia this Summer for her inaugural show at The Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa. The exhibition entitled Julie Mehretu: The Addis Show — which was jointly presented by the Gebre Kristos Desta Center and the United States Embassy in Addis Ababa — was opened on July 8, 2016 and remained on display through August 6, 2016.
‘The Red Rooster Cookbook’ (2016) by Marcus Samuelsson pays homage to modern Harlem. (Photo: Book cover)
“When chef Marcus Samuelsson opened Red Rooster on Harlem’s Lenox Avenue, he envisioned so much more than just a restaurant. He wanted to create a gathering place at the heart of his adopted neighborhood, where both the uptown and downtown sets could see and be seen, mingle and meet – and so he did, in a big way. Ever since the 1930s, Harlem has been a magnet for more than a million African Americans, a melting pot for Spanish, African, and Caribbean immigrants, and a mecca for artists. Named after a historic neighborhood speakeasy, the modern Rooster reflects all of that, from the local art showcased on its walls, to the live music blaring from its performance spaces, to the cross-cultural food on its patrons’ plates and the evocative cocktails in their hands.” Read The Times review at NYTimes.com »
What does it mean to be Ethiopian American? The answer depends on who you ask, but for Playwright Antu Yacob — whose parents immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia when she was barely five years old — the identity is not as clear-cut. In the Gray is the title of Antu’s latest one-person show, which explored precisely this question when it was staged in New York City as part of the Women in Theatre Festival by Project Y Theatre in Manhattan this past summer. “In the Gray” features Antu playing several engaging characters including herself, her 8-year-old son, as well as her muslim and Oromo activist mother who lives in Minnesota. “I knew that I wanted to write about my experience not only as an actor, but also as an Ethio-American professional in the entertainment industry,” Antu told Tadias in an interview following her show. As a playwright Antu says she tries “to experiment with social and political activism in an entertaining way” noting that “America is made up of so many different cultures, and there is room to honor that diversity without sacrificing the beauty of who we are as a people. As Ethiopian Americans we make up a part of the larger American experience.” Read more and see photos »
The film ‘Hairat,” which documents one man’s nightly ritual near Ethiopia’s historic city of Harar, is directed by Jessica Beshir. (Courtesy photo)
Last but not least, a big thumbs-up to Director Jessica Beshir whose documentary short film Hairat from Ethiopia was selected this year to be featured at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. “This is a visual and lyrical exploration of the nightly ritual between a man in Eastern Ethiopia and his feral companions,” the Sundance Institute wrote describing Hairat in a press release. In the film Director Jessica Beshir, who was born in Mexico City and raised in Ethiopia, “returns to the city of her childhood to tell the story of one man’s extraordinary ritual that unfolds nightly in the outskirts of the walled city of Harar.” Jessica’s short film is one of 68 works from around the world that will be screened at Sundance from January 19th through 29th, 2017. Read more »
Girma Bèyènè on the cover of the new éthiopiques CD series Volume 30. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Sunday, December 4th, 2016
New York (TADIAS) — Here comes another historic addition to the Ethiopiques CD series with the upcoming release of its 30th volume next month featuring legendary Ethiopian singer and songwriter Girma Bèyènè.
“After 25 years of silence, the legend Girma Bèyènè is back alongside one of the greatest ethio groups, Akalé Wubé,” the announcement said. “Under the direction of Francis Falceto (director of the famous Ethiopiques series Buda Musique) Girma and Akalé Wubé came together and recorded this album in order to immortalize this renaissance.”
A digital release of Girma’s new album, which is entitled Mistakes on Purpose, is scheduled for January 13th, 2017 by the French world music record label, Buda Musique, while a vinyl release is set for February 3rd, 2017.
Since it was first published 19 years ago the Éthiopiques collection has preserved the works of several prominent singers and musicians including Alemayehu Eshete, Asnaketch Worku, Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatke, Tilahun Gessesse, Ali Birra, Getatchew Mekurya, Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebrou and Kassa Tessema. In addition, songs from Éthiopiques Volume 4 were featured in the 2005 Hollywood movie Broken Flowers written and directed by Jim Jarmusch.
“We are very proud and humbled to be featured side by side such great inspirations like Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu, Girma, Alemayehu and so many others,” the Paris-based band Akalé Wubé said on their website.
Watch: Girma Beyene live in Paris with French band Akale Wube — 2015
Girma used to live in Washington, D.C. for several years beginning in the early 1980′s long before the metro area around the U.S. capital became home to the largest Ethiopian population in America. As The Washington Post pointed out “The great Ethiopian singer, lyricist and arranger first found himself in the District way back in 1981 during a tour in the Walias Band, one of Ethiopia’s most revered jazz troupes. Beyene liked the District enough to stay — but not for good. After many years in the area, he eventually returned to Addis Ababa. It was there, during the 1960s and ’70s, where Beyene had been a major player in one of the planet’s most electrifying music scenes.”
European Parliament member Ana Gomes (center) tweeted this photo after the hearing on 9 Nov 2016. (Photo: @AnaGomesMEP)
VOA News
BRUSSELS — It is now one year since persistent, sometimes violent anti-government protests started in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. How much closer are the Oromos, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, to achieving their demands for more political freedom and economic inclusiveness? Opposition activists addressed members of the European Parliament this week in Brussels.
Olympic runner Feyisa Lilesa is the most famous supporter of the protests in his native Ethiopia. Feyisa, the silver medalist in this year’s men’s marathon in Rio, drew attention when he crossed his wrists at the finish line, a gesture to show solidarity with the protesters.
Feyisa, who now fears returning to Ethiopia, addressed members of the European Parliament one year after the start of the Oromo protests:
He said it will be disastrous if the current situation continues, adding that because all media is blocked in Ethiopia, he is using his visibility to get worldwide media attention by being a voice for his people.
Diaspora protests
Also at the European Parliament is Berhanu Nega, leader of the anti-government diaspora group Ginbot 7. He was sentenced to death in absentia and labeled a terrorist by the Ethiopian government for trying to overthrow the government.
Berhanu believes the next six months will show which direction Ethiopia is heading. He says international pressure is needed to prevent the current tension from escalating.
“My hope is that at least some of the friends of this regime to talk sense that the path to power through violence in Ethiopia is over. That there must be a way to find an alternative and this alternative, to some kind of a soft landing, must happen quickly before it is too late,” he said.
Demonstrations in the Oromia region started on November 12, 2015 in the town of Ginchi, about 80 kilometers west of Addis Ababa. Students and farmers protested a plan to enlarge the boundaries of the capital city.
Protests continued and spread through the country as demands were no longer only about land grabs but also about ethnic marginalization, political freedom and economic development.
Hundreds of Oromo citizens have died, thousands have been imprisoned, and a six-month state of emergency was declared in Ethiopia last month.
Calls for dialogue
Oromo opposition leader Mulatu Gemechu of the Oromo Federal Congress says that despite a Cabinet reshuffle, a lasting solution is still far away.
“Unless the government comes down to the table and discuss with the opposition parties and the other people who are not happy with the sitting government, and create peaceful dialogue, it is impossible to talk about the improvement of peace and all these things,” said Mulatu.
Professor Jan Abbink of the Center of African Studies at Leiden University says the Ethiopian government should not rely solely on the state of emergency to restore order.
“Create a space for discussion,” said Abbink. We need really internationally supervised structures of discussion and deliberation. That might be a great step forward also to rebuild trust in the country, because that is something which is now seriously lacking. Trust between the government and the population.”
Human rights organization Amnesty International said this week that the current security measures “sweep the underlying issues under the carpet” and “that it is only a matter of time before another round of unrest erupts.”
Girma Béyéné's concert at CUNY Graduate Center takes place on Oct. 24th, 2016. (Photo: Horizon Ethiopia)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Thursday, October 20th, 2016
Girma Beyene: Titan of Ethiojazz & Ethiopiques in a Rare NYC Concert
New York (TADIAS) — The legendary Ethiopian singer, songwriter and arranger Girma Beyene will perform live for the first time in New York City next Monday (October 24th) at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. The concert is part of CUNY’s “A Global Music Series” and the singer will be accompanied by the DC-based Feedel Band
Girma, who used to live in Washington, D.C. for several years beginning in the early 1980′s — long before the D.C. metro area became home to the largest Ethiopian population in America — was also in the U.S. capital last week where he gave a live show at Atlas Performing Arts Center. As The Washington Post pointed out “The great Ethiopian singer, lyricist and arranger first found himself in the District way back in 1981 during a tour in the Walias Band, one of Ethiopia’s most revered jazz troupes. Beyene liked the District enough to stay — but not for good. After many years in the area, he eventually returned to Addis Ababa. It was there, during the 1960s and ’70s, where Beyene had been a major player in one of the planet’s most electrifying music scenes.”
“Girma Beyene is one of the most influential Ethiopian musicians from the ‘Golden Age’ of the 1960′s and 1970′s, which combined African rhythms with American R&B, soul, funk, and big band jazz,” states the announcement from CUNY. “Beyene made a handful of recordings as a vocalist, but it was as an arranger, pianist, and composer that he made his mark.”
His best known hit song Enken Yelelebish/Ene Negne By Manesh, which has been redone many times by subsequent generations of artists, including Jano Band in 2013, tops Girma Beyene’s classics that have been preserved in the Éthiopiques CD collection.
According to The Washington Post, “After co-founding the Alem-Girma Band alongside the great vocalist Alemayehu Eshete, Beyene became a highly esteemed arranger, generating more than 65 songs during what many consider to be the golden years of Swinging Addis. (Among those tunes: the deeply beloved and consummately funky “Muziqawi Silt,” popularized by Hailu Mergia, another giant of Ethiopian song who still lives in the Washington area.)”
— If You Go:
CUNY Presents Girma Beyene
October 24, 2016: 7:00 PM
The Graduate Center/CUNY
Elebash Recital Hall
365 Fifth Ave. (at 34th St.)
New York, NY 10016
ADMISSION: $25, $20 Members (free to CUNY) Click here to get Tickets
Video: Girma Beyene live in Paris with French band Akale Wube — 2015
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, with PM Hailemariam Desalegn at the national palace in Addis Ababa, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016. Merkel is visiting Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene)
ADDIS ABABA — German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Ethiopia on Tuesday to open up its politics and ensure police do not use heavy-handed tactics against protesters, after more than a year of unrest that rights groups say has led to about 500 deaths.
Merkel, who spoke at a news conference with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, arrived in Ethiopia after a fresh flare-up near the capital of the clashes that have cast a shadow over a nation with one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
The violence prompted the government to declare a nationwide state of emergency on Sunday. It says the death toll cited by rights groups is exaggerated and blames the wave of violence on “armed gangs” backed by foreigners.
The United States expressed concern on Tuesday about the state of emergency. State Department spokesman John Kirby said measures that restore order but deprive people of rights like freedom of speech and assembly were a “self-defeating tactic that exacerbates rather than addresses the grievances.”
Kirby said the U.S. administration encouraged the Ethiopian government to take action on land rights, electoral reform and other issues raised by the protesters, as suggested by President Mulatu Teshome Wirtu in a speech on Monday.
“We’re obviously very concerned,” Kirby said. “We encourage the government to act decisively on those proposals.”
Western states, which are among the biggest donors to what is still a poor nation, want their companies to win deals in Ethiopia but have become increasingly concerned by the government’s authoritarian approach to development.
“I made the case that you should have open talks with people who have problems,” Merkel told Hailemariam, adding that police should respond proportionately to protests.
Several dozen people were killed and injured in Bishoftu, Ethiopia on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016 after security forces fired at protesters at an Irrecha festival, witnesses say. (Photo: Reuters)
Protests broke out in some areas of Ethiopia’s Oromiya region, a day after dozens of people were killed in a stampede at a religious festival sparked by a bid by police to quell demonstrations, witnesses said.
Opposition politicians and government officials gave contrasting tolls of casualties that took place during the annual Irreecha festival in the town of Bishoftu, some 40km south of the capital Addis Ababa, where police fired teargas and shots in the air to disperse protesters.
The manager of the town’s government-operated referral hospital said the death toll had risen to 55, with 100 injured, from 52 dead on Sunday.
An opposition leader told Reuters the number of dead stood at around 150.
Photo: Reuters
(Photo: Reuters)
On Monday, witnesses said crowds took to the streets in Oromiya’s Ambo, Guder, Bule Hora and other towns in response to the deaths.
“Shots are still being fired. Everything remains shut – Ambo has been brought to a standstill,” said Mesfin, a university student who did not want to give his full name out of fear of reprisal.
Two other residents of the other towns said scuffles took place between demonstrators and police.
The region’s assistant police chief told journalists that “widespread disturbances” had taken place in several parts of the region.
Experts say that after 25 years of control over the country’s public life, the ruling party is facing its biggest political challenge yet. (Reuters)
“Roads have been blocked, while government offices and vehicles have been burnt down. Police are trying to put an end to all this,” said Sorri Dinka, deputy commissioner of the Oromiya Police Commission.
The Horn of Africa country has declared three days of national mourning, with flags flying at half mast throughout the country to pay tribute to the victims.
Sporadic protests have erupted in Oromiya over the last two years, initially triggered by a land row but increasingly turning more broadly against the government.
Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, said Sunday’s death toll had climbed to 150 people and that some of the victims were shot dead by police, contrary to official claims.
BISHOFTU, Ethiopia — Dozens of people were crushed to death Sunday in a stampede after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse an anti-government protest that grew out of a massive religious festival, witnesses said. The Oromia regional government confirmed the death toll at 52.
“I almost died in that place today,” said one shaken protester who gave his name only as Elias. Mud-covered and shoeless, he said he had been dragged out of a deep ditch that many people fell into as they tried to flee.
The first to fall in had suffocated, he said.
“Many people have managed to get out alive, but I’m sure many more others were down there,” he said. “It is really shocking.”
The stampede occurred in one of the East African country’s most politically sensitive regions, Oromia, which has seen months of sometimes deadly demonstrations demanding wider freedoms.
An estimated 2 million people were attending the annual Irrecha thanksgiving festival in the town of Bishoftu, southeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, when people began chanting slogans against the government, according to witnesses.
The chanting crowds pressed toward a stage where religious leaders were speaking, the witnesses said, and some threw rocks and plastic bottles.
Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and people tried to flee. Some were crushed in nearby ditches, witnesses said.
In its statement, the Oromia regional government blamed “evil acts masterminded by forces who are irresponsible,” and it denied that the deaths were caused by any actions by security forces.
Mulatu Gemechu of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress told The Associated Press that his sources at hospitals said at least 52 people were dead as of Sunday evening, but he thought the figure would rise.
The protesters were peaceful and did not carry anything to harm police, he said.
Before the stampede, an AP reporter saw small groups of people walking in the crowd and holding up their crossed wrists in a popular gesture of protest.
The reporter also saw police firing tear gas and, later, several injured people.
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian legend Mahmoud Ahmed, who celebrated his 75th birthday this year, will give a live concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City next month — becoming the first Ethiopian artist to perform at the world famous venue. Mahmoud is scheduled to perform at Carnegie’s Stern Auditorium on Saturday, October 22nd.
Mahmoud’s performance is part of Carnegie Hall’s “Around the Globe” program.
Carnegie Hall described Mahmoud Ahmed as an artist “who blends the traditional Amharic music of the African nation with pop and jazz for an ear-opening, ecstatic experience.”
Mahmoud Ahmed is one of Ethiopia’s legends and cultural icons. As Allmusic notes in their highlight of his biography: “His swooping vocals, complemented by the freewheeling jazziness of the Ibex Band (with whom he recorded his masterpiece, Ere Mela Mela), are very different from what normally is lumped into the broad expression Afro-pop.”
Mahmoud Ahmed on the cover of the award-winning Ethiopiques series album. (Allmusic.com)
— If You Go:
Carnegie Hall Presents Mahmoud Ahmed
Saturday, October 22, 2016 | 8 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Tickets from $12 to $70 Seating Chart (PDF) BUY TICKETS
The Fendika band will launch its 2016 U.S. tour in Brooklyn on September 3rd, 2016. (Courtesy image)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Wednesday, August 24th, 2016
New York (TADIAS) — At NYC’s Bunna Cafe in Brooklyn everything is eshi, so join them as they welcome Ethiopia’s internationally renowned traditional dance group, Fendika, all the way from Addis Ababa for a live show at LightSpace Studios on September 3rd.
The Fendika group is best known for keeping alive Ethiopia’s ancient Azmari tradition of “musical storytelling that uses improvisation, dance, humor to create a one-of-a-kind collective experience,” Bunna Cafe announced. “Nobody does it better than Fendika.”
Fendika takes its name from its band leader Melaku Belay’s “famous decades-old club in Addis Ababa — a club that has kept its grasp on the traditional art and dance style, in the face of Addis’ own version of gentrification, and a changing, modernizing look and feel in Fendika’s neighborhood.”
Melaku Belay, leader of the Fendika traditional dance group. (Courtesy photo)
(Photo credit: Asmelash Tesfay)
Fendika’s Brooklyn show will open with a performance by diaspora Ethio-Jazz Band Arki Sound led by Samson Kebede.
— If You Go:
FENDIKA returns to NYC
Presented By: Bunna Cafe
Saturday, September 3, 2016 at 9:00 PM
LightSpace Studios
1115 Flushing Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11237
Door: $20 Click here for more info and to buy tickets
The final report of the 'Mechachal' study regarding the nature and quality of online debate among Ethiopians, led by the University of Oxford and Addis Ababa University, was released on June 1st, 2016. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Friday, June 17th, 2016
New York (TADIAS) — This month, researchers at the University of Oxford and Addis Ababa University released their highly anticipated final report of the Mechachal study on online speech and debates in Ethiopia and the Diaspora. The study, which is the first of its kind to map the frequency of hate and dangerous speech in social media covering an entire country and its diaspora, combed through thousands of comments shared by Ethiopians on Facebook during a four month period last year just prior to and after the controversial 2015 national elections.
The researchers — comprising of an academic team that were either Ethiopian or had prior experience researching and working in Ethiopia — also looked at the nature, quality and behavior of online conversations among Ethiopians worldwide. Their findings call for more informed policy-making with regards to regulating freedom of expression and online discussion on social media platforms.
“These cases, and the findings emerging from the investigation of online debates on Ethiopia in general, suggest how important it is to distinguish between different actors and issues that are often bundled together in the broad label of ‘opposition politics,’” says Iginio Gagliardone, one of the Mechachal study researchers and an Associate Research Fellow in New Media and Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
In an interview with Tadias Magazine researcher Matti Pohjonen noted that “the collaboration with Addis Ababa University had begun in 2012 when we joined forces to understand what impact Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were actually having in Eastern Africa, beyond the hype that had characterized the campaigns to reduce the digital divide and use ICTs for development.” Pohjonen added: This effort also included other universities in the region, from Kenya to Uganda to Somalia. Mechachal emerged from the many conversations we had as part of that forum and we do hope that our efforts in Ethiopia could be scaled up in the region. We could learn a lot from comparatively analyzing online conversations in those countries.”
Asked about the generational gap in tone, behavior and quality of online debate among Ethiopians both in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora, Gagliardone said “it is difficult to assess the accuracy of data on age provided on Facebook, and the fact that Ethiopia follows a calendar that is different from the one used by Facebook (based on the Gregorian calendar), further complicates things. However, if we use the age of individuals involved in specific events debated on Facebook as a proxy (assuming users tend to be more interested in commenting facts involving individuals of their own generation), some noticeable trends do emerge. Ethiopia’s youth seems more inclined to adopt less contentious tones and embrace more universalistic forms of politics, while older figures and grievances tend to trigger more polarized debates.”
Gagliardone added: “One example is the detention and trial of six members of the Zone 9 collective. Despite the case attracted criticism around the status of freedom of expression in Ethiopia, both at national and international level, almost none of the analyzed statements about the Zone 9 bloggers were antagonistic. Almost at the opposite extreme, in terms of the level of political antagonism that they triggered, were debates bringing back tensions between the current government and long-standing political opponents. Berhanu Nega’s arrival in Eritrea in July 2015, for example, attracted much attention and encouraged a heated debate on Facebook. More than 40% of statements referring to the issue were categorized as going against. As an indication of how polarizing this issue was, and how it did not simply lead to focusing on a particular target, antagonistic statements were equally distributed between those attacking the government and those attacking Ginbot 7.”
The report states that “In terms of where speakers were posting from, most of them were from Ethiopia (42%), but a significant proportion was from outside of the country (22%). These figures could be considered as both confirming and refuting the narrative about online debate on Ethiopia being driven by the Diaspora. On the one hand, twice as many people are posting from within Ethiopia, but the fact that 22% of individuals discussing issues related to Ethiopia are from the Diaspora is a significant number, especially when considered in a comparative perspective.”
The research methodology included the collection of statements that either went against or were in support of an issue. Analysis of the data focused not on whether statements were made “agreeing or disagreeing, but about the tendency to take a viewpoint seriously and engage with it, or, on the contrary, to dismiss it and directly attack a person for his/her affiliation with a specific group…Speakers uttering statements that go against generally use non-insulting language, and they do not suggest, imply or call the audience to physical or nonphysical violence. Nonetheless, there are instances in which speakers use insulting/derogatory terms or metaphors.”
This study is a result of a two-year collaborative work between the University of Oxford & Addis Ababa University under the name “Mechachal,” translated as “tolerance” in Amharic. (Courtesy photo)
Regarding the distinction made in the research between hate speech and dangerous speech, Gagliardone explained that “dangerous speech is speech that builds the bases for or directly calls for widespread violence against a particular group.”
“Distinguishing it from hate speech may be important to understand how likely it is that words may turn into action,” Gagliardone told Tadias. “Our findings indicate that only 0.3% of statements fall in this category. He added: “Distinguishing hate and dangerous speech also enabled the research to spot some specific features that characterize the most extreme forms of expression. When compared to hate speech, as well as to other types of messages, dangerous speech reflects a more deliberate strategy to attack individuals and groups.”
Gagliardone noted that almost all dangerous statements in their sample are uttered by individuals seeking to hide their identity (92%). “This proportion is significantly lower for statements classified as hate speech (33%) and offensive speech (31%),” Gagliardone said. “In addition, while the majority of hateful statements can be found in comments, indicating a tendency for speakers to react angrily to what they read online, there is an equal chance of dangerous statements in posts or comments.”
“Shifting the focus from speakers to targets, dangerous statements appear to focus exclusively on ethnicity,” Gagliardone continued. “The salience of ethnicity can be found also in other types of messages. 75% of hate speech and 58% of offensive speech have ethnic targets, but they also target individuals based on their religion, and, to a much smaller extent, their sexual identity. This finding, more than others, is likely to be specific to the context of Ethiopia, where ethnicity has a central role in national debates, but it also offers new ground to explore some of the distinctive features of dangerous speech as compared to other form of speech.”
Part of the research team attending a methodology workshop in Oxford, December 2014. (Courtesy photo)
Below are the bios of key members of the Mechachal research team:
Iginio Gagliardone is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of the Witwatersrand and Associate Research Fellow in New Media and Human Rights at the University of Oxford. His research has focused on the relationship between new media, political change, and human development and on the emergence of distinctive models of the information society in the Global South. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Matti Pohjonen is a Research Fellow for VOX-POL, a European Union Framework Programme 7 (FP7)-funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it. His work focuses on developing comparative and practice-based research approaches to understand digital cultures in the developing world. Previously he worked as an AHRC post-doctorate and a Teaching Fellow in Digital Culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
Abdissa Zerai is Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism & Communication, Addis Ababa University, where he focuses on the political economy of the Ethiopian media and ICT in the context of a democratic developmental state. He has been working on issues related to conflict reporting, political economy of communication, and the nexus between media, democracy & civil society.
Zenebe Beyene is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Communication, Director of Office of External Relations, Partnerships and Communications at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and NAFSA Global Dialogue Fellow. Dr. Zenebe has taught in Ethiopia, Rwanda and the U.S.A. His publications include Media use and abuse in Ethiopia, the role of ICT in peace building, state building and governance in Africa (with Abdissa Zerai), and Satellites, Plasmas and Law (with Abdissa Zerai and Iginio Gagliardone).
Gerawork Aynekulu is reading for a MSc in computer science at University of Belgrade, where he focuses on data mining. He has been working on text analytics of online Amharic textual resources.
Jonathan Bright is Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, which is a department of the University of Oxford. He is also an editor of the journal Policy and Internet. He is a political scientist specializing in political communication, digital government and computational social science.
Mesfin Awoke Bekalu is a Research Fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA. Prior to his current post, he has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leuven, Belgium and a lecturer in Journalism and Communications at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. His research interests include communication inequalities in the areas of health and development as well as media discourse analysis.
Michael Seifu is an independent researcher based in Ireland and has completed a PhD in politics from Dublin City University. He has been working on issues related to the politics of economic development.
Mulatu Alemayehu Moges is PhD candidate in the University of Oslo, at the Department of Media and Communication, where he focuses on conflict reporting in the Ethiopian media. He has been working as a Journalist in Ethiopian media, and as Lecturer and Researcher in Addis Ababa University, School of Journalism and Communication. 103
Nicole Stremlau is Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on media and conflict in the Horn of Africa. She has worked extensively in Ethiopia, Somaliland/Somalia, Uganda and Kenya. As Head of PCMLP, she also directs the Price Media Law Moot Court Programme and co-directs the Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute.
Patricia Taflan is Research Assistant at the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, University of Oxford. She completed an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice, also at the University of Oxford, where she focused on online hate crime.
Tewodros Makonnen Gebrewolde is PhD candidate at the University of Leicester, where he focuses on productivity growth and industrial policy. He has been working on issues related to economic growth and development of the Ethiopian Economy.
Zelalem Mogessie Teferra is PhD candidate in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. His study focuses on the intersection between national security and the humanitarian norms of international law. He was previously an Instructor of Law at Jimma University (Ethiopia), Michigan Grotius Scholar in University of Michigan (U.S.A).
A hypnotic mix of musical styles, Ethio-jazz has a fascinating history and is enjoying a comeback at venues across the city. (Photograph: Meleket performing at African Jazz Village/ by Oliver Gordon)
I’m submerged in a heaving, sweaty mass of bodies, all singing, dancing, clapping along to the mesmeric crooning of Alemayehu Eshete – the man known as the Ethiopian Elvis. It’s Saturday night and I’m sharing limited oxygen with Addis Ababa’s great and good at Mama’s Kitchen, a wood-and-glass bar on the fourth floor of an innocuous shopping mall near Bole airport. Eshete, a shining star of the 1960s Ethiopian music scene, conducts the revelry in local Amharic tones as his band deliver a hypnotic mix of funky jazz, rockabilly and the swinging scales of traditional Ethiopian folk. This is Ethio-jazz.
A fusion of the eerie rhythms of ancient Ethiopian tribal music with the soulful undertones of jazz and the funky bounce of Afrobeat, Ethio-jazz had its heyday in the 1950s and 60s but in recent years has been making a slow but unmistakable comeback in the country’s capital.
“There are kids now playing Ethio-Jazz. It’s really becoming big again,” music legend Mulatu Astatke tells me on the sidelines of a gig at his bar, African Jazz Village. “I have this radio programme; for seven years I have been pumping out Ethio-jazz, teaching the people what it’s all about, but it’s definitely catching on now.”
Ethio-jazz is now played on the radio and taught at all the capital’s music colleges, and a new crop of musicians is beginning to flower as a result. “There are talented young musicians out there, such as Girum Gizaw (from the aforementioned Meleket) and Samuel Yirga, who are really coming up’,” says Astatke. “But they’re not just mimicking the old music, they’re evolving it into new directions.”
The Weeknd performing at the 58th Grammy Awards in L.A. on Monday, February 15th, 2016. (Wire Image)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Tuesday, February 16th, 2016
New York (TADIAS) — The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) won two Grammy Awards during the 58th annual ceremony held in Los Angeles on Monday evening. The Canadian-born singer-songwriter, who is the first Ethiopian artist to win the award, received the 2016 prize for Best R&B Performance and Best Urban Contemporary Album for Beauty Behind The Madness.
“The Weeknd’s blockbuster sophomore album, Beauty Behind the Madness, yielded seven Grammy nominations, including record and album of the year, along with an Academy Award nod for “Earned It,” which appeared on the soundtrack for the 2015 hit “Fifty Shades of Grey,” The Los Angeles Times noted in a recent profile of Abel. “Tesfaye’s breakout year is that much more remarkable given how unlikely a pop star he was.”
LA Times adds: “The Ethiopian Canadian singer (Amharic, his first language, can be heard on his smash “The Hills”) debuted in 2011 with a trilogy of mixtapes that helped usher in a wave of artists who eschewed conventional R&B boundaries in favor of edgier productions.”
“I wanted to drop three albums in a year because no one had done it. It was bold, unheard of. Back then I didn’t even want to get onstage,” Tesfaye said of his anonymous start.
The Weeknd’s chart-topping hit “Earned It,” from the soundtrack of Fifty Shades of Grey, is also nominated for the 2016 Oscars in the Original Song category.
It’s 2000 something. I’m holed up in my bedroom searching for samples to chop up on Fruity Loops. While deep into the free-market jungle of Amazon’s suggested music section, I stumble across a compilation of Ethiopian music with faded pictures of nine dudes jamming in white suit jackets. I press play on the 30 second sample.
My mind races with the opportunities these breakbeats offered a budding beatmaker. Catchy organs, swinging horns, funky guitar riffs, soulful melodies and grainy and pained vocalists swoon over love lost and gained. Sung in my mother tongue—Amharic—this was a far cry from the corny synthesizer music of the 1990s that my parents played on Saturday mornings. I could actually sample this shit.
The next day, I burn a CD and pop it into my dad’s car. His eyes light up when the first notes ooze out of the speakers.
“Where did you get this?” He asks puzzlingly.
“The internet,” I respond smiling.
In the 1970s my dad was one of thousands of high school students in Addis Ababa protesting the monarchy. The protests eventually created instability which lead to a coup d’état. The monarchy was overthrown and a Marxist styled military junta composed of low ranking officers called the Derg came to power. The new regime subsequently banned music they deemed to be counter revolutionary. When the Derg came into power, Amha Eshete, a pioneering record producer and founder of Ahma Records, fled to the US and the master recordings of his label’s tracks somehow ended up in a warehouse in Greece.
Fast forward, 1997. The Paris-based record label Buda Musique, stumbles upon a collection of decades old Ethiopian music and releases Éthiopiques Volume 1: The Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music, a compilation of largely forgotten songs from an extraordinary period of musical experimentation. Funk, soul, jazz, rock—popular western and traditional Ethiopian music ground together into a dizzyingly fresh sound with subtle scents of bunna (coffee in Amharic) breezing through the music’s notes.
At the forefront of this musical explosion was Mulatu Astatke, the legendary jazz musician, who expertly meshed jazz and traditional Ethiopian melodies with a sprinkle of Latin-influenced rhythms. The result: Ethio-Jazz, a sweepingly beautiful sound of a certain unique tonality.
Buda Musique has released 29 Éthiopique compilations to date with gems on gems throughout the collection, ranging from traditional Ethiopian music while some focus on specific genres or highlight the works of certain artists such as Alemayehu Eshete, Asnaketch Worku, Mahmoud Ahmed, and Tilahun Gessesse. None of the compilations within the series feature the more contemporary synthesizer-based Ethiopian pop music.
The Éthiopiques series, made possible by an unexpected but beautiful cross-cultural exchange of extraordinary proportions, has naturally caught the attention of music-heads, audiophiles and producers alike. And with that brief history in mind, I present to you a list of ten modern tracks, all made in the new millennia, that have sampled Ethiopian music, expanding even further the deep multicultural history of Ethiopian, and by extension, all music.
The Weeknd can add Oscar nominee to his résumé. The singer-songwriter scored a nomination at the 88th annual Academy Awards, it was announced today.
His chart-topping hit “Earned It” off the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack is up in the Original Song category. His fellow nominees include Lady Gaga and Diane Warren (“Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground), Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes (“Writing’s On the Wall” from Spectre), David Lang (“Simple Song #3” from Youth), and J. Ralph and Antony Hegarty (“Manta Ray” from Racing Extinction).
A humbled Weeknd took to Twitter to react to the honor. “It can’t get more surreal than this. thank you for the recognition @TheAcademy . truly a proud moment,” he tweeted.
New York (TADIAS) — Singer and songwriter Meklit Hadero will perform at the 2016 New York City Winter Jazzfest on Saturday, January 16th at Zinc Bar in Greenwich Village.
Winter Jazzfest takes place over two-nights on January 15th and 16th at various venues in the Village and will showcase more than 100 groups. “Continuing a tradition of supporting like-minded jazz presenters Winter Jazzfest is pleased to again feature the unique programming visions of Revive Music and New York Hot Jazz Festival who will each curate their own stages during these two-nights,” organizers announced.
Meklit is also scheduled to perform at another NYC venue, Iridium, on Monday, January 18, 2016. The concert will feature her latest music This Was Made Here, which is “deeply inspired by Mulatu Astatke, the Godfather of Ethio-Jazz.”
“This Was Made Here was sparked by a conversation between Meklit and Mulatu late one night after Meklit’s 2011 full band debut in Addis Ababa,” the Iridium said in its announcement. “Mulatu urged her to not play Ethio-Jazz as he and others created it 45 years ago, but to take it further and be a part of its evolution. He tasked her to make her own mark on this music, and she is now responding in song.” Meklit’s third album featuring these songs is scheduled to be released in May 2016 by Six Degrees Records.
Abel Tesfaye (the Weeknd) performs on NBC's "Today" show on May 7, 2015, in New York. (AP photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Wednesday, December 9th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) is one of top three music stars who has been nominated in multiple categories for the 2016 Grammy Awards.
The Ethiopian-Canadian artist received seven nominations including the categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance.
The Los Angeles Times reports: “This all comes from artists today who are emboldened, who are fearless and who are not willing, or wanting to be, sort of put in a nice little box with a bow on it,” Recording Academy President Neil Portnow told The Times. “Artists today have the ability to be exposed to multiple kinds of genres in music, and we’ll give credit to the world of technology we live in that gives easy access to whatever direction you want to head in.”
“With more than 400 nominations across 83 categories for 2016, there is plenty more recognition spread out among the music community” says the LA Times.
Last month The Weeknd won the 2015 American Music Awards for favorite album in Soul and R&B.
The 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, February 15, 2016 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. ‘
Prince presenting the first award at the 43rd American Music Awards to Ethiopian-Canadian musician The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 22nd, 2015. (Photo: Twitter/@theweeknd)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Monday, November 23rd, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian-Canadian music star The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) was one of the early winners, for favorite album in Soul and R&B, at the 2015 American Music Awards on Sunday.
The Weeknd received the award for his newest album, Beauty Behind the Madness.
“Prince, who earned a rousing applause, presented the first award of the night to the Weeknd for favorite album,” AP reports. The ceremony, which was hosted by Jennifer Lopez. was held at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
Prince, right, presents The Weeknd with the award for favorite album – soul/R&B for “Beauty Behind the Madness” at the American Music Awards, Sunday, November 22nd, 2015. (Photo: AP)
The UK-based Ethiopian traditional music group Krar Collective performing live at the Lincoln Center David Rubenstein Atrium in New York City on Thursday, September 24th, 2015. (Photograph: Tadias Magazine)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Friday, September 25th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — If you missed Krar Collective’s stellar show at Lincoln Center’s Atrium last night you have one more chance to join them at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan this evening.
The London-based Ethiopian traditional music trio’s performance had the crowd leaping to its feet with their final rendition of a traditional Guragigna song at Lincoln Center on Thursday night.
Led by Temesgen Zeleke, a former student of Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-Jazz, Krar Collective uses a minimal band set consisting of traditional and electronic Krars (harps), Kebero (drums) and accompanied by soaring vocals to create sounds that blend traditional Azmari ambience with contemporary sounds of rock and jazz. Lincoln Center describes their sound as “a rootsy yet contemporary take on traditional music from Ethiopia based on other-worldly modes and driven by hypnotic rhythms.”
Below are photos from Krar Collective’s show at Lincoln Center on Thursday, September 24th, 2015.
— If You Go:
Krar Collective at Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)
Friday, September 25th at 10:30 PM
196 Allen St, New York, NY 10002
Doors open at 10:15pm
Price $10 (Ages 21 and over) Click here for tickets
Krar Collective is a UK-based Ethiopian three-piece band inspired by the traditional krar. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Wednesday, September 9th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — The London-based Ethiopian traditional music trio, Krar Collective, will perform live at the Lincoln Center David Rubenstein Atrium in New York City on Thursday, September 24th.
Krar Collective follows a recent string of fantastic Ethiopian artists who have performed at the Lincoln Center Atrium including Hailu Mergia, Meklit Hadero, and Grammy–nominated Ethiopian American Singer Wayna.
A description of Krar Collective on their website notes that the trio is “Led by Temesgen Zeleke, a former student of Ethiojazz legend Mulatu Astatke” and “perform a rootsy yet contemporary take on traditional music from Ethiopia based on other-worldly modes and driven by hypnotic rhythms.”
“With songs that journey from gently, rippling acoustic numbers to truly rabble-rousing, this music that is at once African, and yet unique to Ethiopia will move your soul and rock your feet,” the announcement states. “The traditional acoustic krar lyre is associated with the azmari minstrel tradition; electrified, in the hands of Zeleke it becomes a gritty, ancient rock guitar. Accompanied just by traditional kebero drums and fronted by stunning vocals, Krar Collective with a minimal line up create a surprisingly full band sound, leading them to be dubbed The Ethiopian White Stripes.”
(Picture by Petra Cvelbar via www.krarcollective.com)
— If You Go:
Krar Collective at Lincoln Center Atrium
Thursday, September 24th at 7:30 PM
David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
New York City www.lincolncenter.org
Here comes a delightful music superstar with substance – simply known as Meklit
I’ll admit, I didn’t get Meklit Hadero, the Ethiopian-born, San Francisco-based singer and songwriter when she burst onto the music scene some six years ago. But then one of her songs from her most innovative album to date, “We Are Alive” (Six Degrees Records), implanted in my brain. (The title track, ‘We Are Alive,’ with Meklit’s silky voice floating effortlessly above the guitar-driven song) quaked my foundation and my girl crush was born. As a-matter-of-fact I love the raw ambition of the “We Are Alive” album – the preposterousness, the simplicity and also the fundamental intelligence. But, witnessing her live-in-concert was mind-blowing. Meklit Hadero is the business. She performed songs from her second solo full length album to a packed audience and critics alike at Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London. This singer, musician, and cultural activist simply known as Meklit took us on a musical odyssey of Ethiopian traditional tunes and more besides: American-Jazz, Hip Hop, street-level Jazz, Rock, East African Folk and Ethiopian classics – the lyricist practice of her auditory mother country.
Born in Ethiopia, from Ethiopian parents, she feels deeply African and deeply American and her records are deeply inspired by Mulatu Astatke, the Godfather of Ethio-Jazz. Her work builds upon the concepts pioneered by Astatke as part of the late 60s and early 70s Golden Age of Ethiopian music. Taking these principal elements of her heritage as introductory building blocks, she explores the cultural dreams happening as part of the arrival of the Ethiopian Migration en masse to North America. In spite of this, it must be celebrated that this artist’s voice makes for compelling listening. Her performance on stage makes for compelling seeing. Her voice is earthy and soulful, supple and freed, and exudes all four. If champagne were a person it would be Meklit Hadero. She is stunning. In an alternate life, one where talent was spread out differently, this is the kind of music I would like to make. It’s subtle, contemporary and one of its kind, while being massively emotional. Oh well, fair enough! What is more? There’s more to this woman. We also find this touring performer, and a political science Yale University graduate, is a committed activist extraordinaire.
In 2011 she launched the UN Women’s campaign for gender equality in Africa, and co-founded the “Nile Project” with dear friend Mina Girgis, an Egyptian ethnomusicologist, with background in hospitality experience, curating and producing innovative musical collaborations across diverse styles. The Nile Project brings together artists from the eleven Nile countries that borders the River Nile, namely, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt, to make music that combines the region’s diverse instruments, languages and traditions. Meklit Hadero may not yet be your household one and you may not have heard Meklit Hadero’s music before, but once you do, I promise it’ll be tough to get it out of your head.
Abel Tesfaye (the Weeknd) performs on NBC's "Today" show on May 7, 2015, in New York. (AP photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Monday, August 3rd, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — Recently the New York Times highlighted The Weeknd — an Ethiopian-Canadian music star (née Abel Tesfaye) — in a profile entitled “Can the Weeknd Turn Himself Into the Biggest Pop Star in the World?” and described his newest album, Beauty Behind the Madness, as “full of swaggeringly confident music indebted to the arena-size ambition of the 1980s, from Guns N’ Roses to Phil Collins to Michael Jackson.” Indeed The Weeknd is inspired by Michael Jackson and has his own phenomenal rendition of “Dirty Diana” but the New York Times article also notes that he “attributes some of his signature vocal gestures to the Ethiopian influences of his childhood” such as Ethiopian pop legend Aster Aweke. The Weeknd’s new album is scheduled to be released on August 28th.
Often labeled as an R&B singer his style nonetheless remains uncategorizable — a mix of ecstatic techno, high pitch mellow croons and lyrics with no holds barred. Posting on YouTube and Facebook The Weeknd first entered the music scene by dropping three self-produced albums online in a single year. “I like making music. I’ll always be making music. I’ll always reinvent myself and do things and say things other artists wouldn’t do or say” he asserts, calling his writing as “more or less an evolution” and admitting that it’s loosely inspired by personal life experiences.
News outlets including the Guardian and Mic have jumped on the wagon dubbing The Weeknd as the “next face of R&B” and citing how he has “accomplished something no other R&B artist has ever done — claiming the three top spots on Billboard’s Hot R&B songs chart.” But Abel isn’t as enamored with the press as they are with him. “I try to shy away from press because it’s never about the art for them, and I totally respect that,” he says in an MTV documentary that he wrote and directed following the release of his first studio album Kiss Land. “But the only thing I rely on is good music..Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music then I feel like I have failed. The world didn’t have a face to put to the music until recently, and that’s how I want to be remembered.”
Album cover for classic recording of one of Teddy Mitiku's most beloved songs "Amalele." (Teddy's Mood)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Sunday, May 10th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — A saxophone that used be owned by legendary Ethiopian musician Teddy Mitiku is being auctioned on Ebay by his family. The instrument (Selmer Series III Alto Sax) is in “solid shape and was well cared for,” said the saxophone dealer coordinating the sale on behalf of Teddy’s widow.
Teddy who had lived in the United States since 1983 passed away in 2013 at the age of 58 after a long illness. He is survived by his wife of 22 years, Meaza Bezu, a daughter, Makeda, and his brother, the renowned singer-musician Teshome Mitiku.
“Teddy was a member of the legendary Soul Ekos Band—the first independent musical ensemble to be recorded in Ethiopia,” the announcement added. “He was also the cornerstone of many other famous bands formed in Ethiopia in the 1960s and ’70s. His instrumental renditions have been continuously popular. Teddy had a unique style beloved by Ethiopians. During his long career, Teddy performed with numerous top Ethiopian musicians, including the legendary singer Tilahun Gessesse, and the “father of Ethio-jazz” Mulatu Astatke. He was also a member of the Ibex Band, as one half of the group’s two-saxophone horn section on the classic Mahmoud Ahmed record Ere Mela Mela.”
The saxophone being sold, according to the dealer, was recently “disassembled, cleaned and adjusted in preparation for sale. The pads are old and while the horn is playing it is not up to its potential. You might be able to start swapping pads out one by one but really it needs a standard overhaul and it will be ready for years of serious use. You should plan at the least on having several pads changed and ideally have them all done. The tone is rich and full and will work well in a wide variety of playing situations. Classical players can use them but so can jazz and R+B players. Case is a black, hardshell contoured Pro Tec in good clean used condition.”
Below are photos of Teddy Mitiku’s Saxophone. You can learn more about the auction at ebay.com.
Teddy Mitiku’s Saxophone. (Photo: Ebay)
(Photo: Ebay)
(Photo: Ebay)
Video: Ethiopian Instrumental Music Teddy Mitiku (Amalele)
Col. John C. Robinson. (Courtesy of International Council for the Commemoration of Col. John C. Robinson)
Tadias Magazine
By Taias Staff
Published: Friday, May 1st, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopia will host the first annual national commemoration of American pilot Col. John C. Robinson, who was nicknamed “The Brown Condor” for his heroic commanding of the Ethiopian Air Force during the war against Fascist Italy. Robinson will be honored on May 5, 2015 on Ethiopian Patriots’ Day at Victory Square in Addis Ababa.
“Col. John C. Robinson was an inspiring African American aviation pioneer and a brave Ethiopian war hero,” said the International Council for the Commemoration of Col. John C. Robinson in a press release. “He was instrumental in the formation of what was to become the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII fame, led Ethiopian Air Forces against Italian aggression, and trained numerous military and civilian pilots for Ethiopia. Among his many accomplishments, he established the first African American owned airline and pilot school in Chicago, USA, and founded the American Institute School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After sacrificing his life for Ethiopia, Col. Robinson is finally receiving his due recognition.” Robinson died in a plane crash in Ethiopia in 1954. He is buried at Gullele cemetery in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian historian Ayele Bekerie writes: “When the Italo-Ethiopian War erupted, [Robinson] left his family and went to Ethiopia to fight alongside the Ethiopians. According to William R. Scott, who conducted thorough research in documenting the life and accomplishments of John Robinson, wrote about Robinson’s ability to overcome racial barriers to go to an aviation school in the United States. In Ethiopia, Robinson served as a courier between Haile Selassie and his army commanders in the war zone.”
Expected guests at the event include Mulatu Teshome, President of Ethiopia, and former President of Ethiopia Girma W/Giorgis, as well as Abune Mathias who will provide the benediction.
The Press release added: International guest and official representatives of the embassies as well as thousands of Ethiopians will witness the unveiling of a bust, in the likeness of this great American hero, who dedicated his life to defending Ethiopia during the Ethio-Italian War of 1935, and preparing it to achieve the commercial status it receives today in the airline industry. Other activities will take place, including the unveiling of a mural, by Ethiopian artist Ato Fasil Dawit, depicting the life of Col. Robinson that is planned to be displayed at the Bole International Airport. Throughout the week of May 3rd, several lunches and dinners are planned with members of the Council, US and other embassy personnel and guests. Future plans include official recognition from the US government for his lifetime achievements to American aviation.
Below is a text of the remarks made by U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia M. Haslach at the Dedication of a Reading Garden in Honor of John Robinson on February 19, 2015 at the U.S. Embassy, Addis Ababa.
As Prepared for Delivery on February 19, 2015 at the U.S. Embassy, Addis Ababa
Your Excellency Girma Wolde Giorgis,
Former President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,
Mr. Henok Tefera, Vice President for Strategic Communications of Ethiopian Airlines
Invited guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is with great pleasure that the Embassy of the United States of America recognizes the contributions of U.S. citizen John Charles Robinson who came to the aid of Ethiopia during its time of need in the struggle against fascist occupation in the 1930’s, and who again returned to a peaceful and independent Ethiopia following World War II to help establish a professional Ethiopian Air Force and Ethiopian Airlines.
John Charles Robinson was born in 1903 in Florida and grew up in a very segregated South. In 1910, when John was 7, he saw his first aircraft, a float plane that taxied to the beach. John Robinson knew that he wanted one day to fly an airplane, and he set out to overcome the obstacle of segregation. He did this by learning to excel at school and later at work, to never let disappointments overcome his determination and to wear his successes with modesty.
He enrolled in the Tuskegee Institute and learned to become an automobile mechanic. He decided there would be better job opportunities in the North, so he moved to Detroit where he earned a reputation as an exceptionally good mechanic. Moving to Chicago, he wanted to enroll in the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School, but black students were not welcome. Although he had a full-time job in an auto garage, he signed on as a nighttime janitor in a Curtiss-Wright classroom, absorbing the instructor’s ground-school lectures. The instructor realized how determined John was and persuaded the school to let him enroll.
After graduation, John went on to form a small flying school, encouraging young black men to enroll. This fact came to the attention of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, who was working to modernize his country. He invited Robinson to come to Ethiopia to head his Air Force. Robinson came to Ethiopia and built a cadre of black pilots and ground crews and was named the Commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force.
John Robinson joined Ethiopia in its fight against fascist Italy, but, ultimately, the Italians conquered Ethiopia, if only temporarily. Haile Selassie escaped to England and John Robinson to America. Back home, his aviation school thrived. Tuskegee, to which he had proposed an aircraft school in the 1930s, finally had one and turned out hundreds of who became the Tuskegee Airmen, who gained fame in World War II. After the war, Haile Selassie invited Robinson back to Ethiopia, first to rebuild his Air Force, then to create Ethiopian Airlines. As with everything else, this remarkable man performed these jobs with determination and thoroughness.
In the history of U.S.-Ethiopian relations, beginning with the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1903, there have been many individuals from both our countries who have brought our nations together in common endeavors for our mutual benefit. John Robinson’s story stands out as a remarkable example of the individual bonds between the peoples of our two countries.
Today, we honor the spirit of this bond between the Ethiopian and American peoples by dedicating a Reading Garden in memory of Col. John Robinson who gave his life for Ethiopia 60 years ago. The establishment of this reading garden at the U.S. Embassy is part of our month long celebration of Black History month, and will commemorate the extraordinary contributions of Col. Robinson, who lost his life in the service to the Ethiopia on March 26, 1954.
We are indebted to and appreciate the contributions of John C. Robinson, and commit to honoring his name and memory so that future generations may aspire to follow in his footsteps in strengthening the partnership between our two nations.
Ethiopia is home to a wealth of promising artists, especially musicians, who look to redefine the quintessential narrative of Ethiopia to more inclusively portray the culture and talent of its people. We look at 9 modern day artists who lend a progressive edge to the country’s music, pushing boundaries and exploring the nuances of its distinct and diverse sounds.
Formal practice of music in Ethiopia is believed to be one of the oldest in Africa – in an interview with Afropop.com, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, a Harvard professor of ethnomusicology and a scholar of Ethiopian music, says ‘Ethiopia is the only African country with an indigenous system of musical writing and musical notation’. And just as the history of Ethiopian music is extensive, its modern day adaptations are wide ranging and defies being siphoned into a single category.
The evolution of Ethiopia’s music has had its share of ups and downs, but it has proved to be resilient in adapting to the times. This is evident in the works of visionary artists such as the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke, who promulgated Ethiopia’s mostly pentatonic scale-style music when he established Ethio-jazz as a standalone genre back in the 1970s, proving that Ethiopian grooves can be popular worldwide.
In Ethiopia, a forward-thinking network of artists are uniting traditional folk and chopped-up beats with whatever equipment they can get their hands on. (Photo of Endeguena Mulu by Pete Kowalczyk)
In downtown Addis Ababa, most nightclubs have a disappointingly generic, western playlist. But on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital, you’ll discover a throng of exciting local producers throwing their own impromptu parties and packing out muggy backstreet bars. Meshing street musician samples and traditional folk sounds with UKG and Burial-inspired beats, they call the movement Ethiopiyawi electronic.
Music equipment is notoriously costly and difficult to get hold of in this part of the world but, recently, modern software like Ableton, along with MIDI controllers and hand-me-down drum machines have become more readily accessible. As a result, scene linchpins Endeguena Mulu (AKA Ethiopian Records) and Mikael Seifu (AKA Mic Tek) are offering their studios and equipment for use to local kids. They encourage them to absorb what they hear around them, while at the same time drawing upon the electronic patrimony of the UK and US. And rather than elevating the EDM sound, they prefer the twitching rhythms of Kode9 and Flying Lotus.
Often consisting of little more than a lyre or lute sample, underpinned by a chopped-up house or garage beat and overlaid with the looped chants of azmaris (folk singer-musicians), the Ethiopiyawi electronic style takes its cues from Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke and South African futurist collective Fantasma in the way that it smoothly blends traditional and modern styles. In a country with more than 80 ethnic groups and 40 native instruments spanning horns, percussion and strings, Ethiopian folk music is inherently diverse.
Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome will host the 2014 U.S. - Ethiopia Investment Summit at the Houstonian Club in Houston, Texas on Wednesday, July 30th, 2014. (Photo: World Bulletin)
African officials will be in Houston Tuesday to tour American energy infrastructure and to pitch for investments in their power sectors.
The energy ministers from Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania will meet Tuesday with U.S. Trade and Development Agency Director Leocadia I. Zak and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, as well as talk to officials from U.S. energy companies, the agency said.
Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome will also host the 2014 U.S. – Ethiopia Investment Summit at the Houstonian Club on Wednesday.
American companies have lagged behind their global competitors in taking advantage of the enormous economic growth and potential for big returns on the continent. I’ve written about the need for American investors to reconsider their preconceived notions about Africa. Now there’s a chance of Houston executives to hear the pitch firsthand.
The goal of the energy ministers’ visit to Houston is to show them the benefits of infrastructure investment in energy projects, and to inform U.S. executives about possible projects in Africa.
Hailu Mergia and Feedel Band will perform at Drom NYC on Saturday, January 11th, 2014. (Photos: Washington Post and Feedel Band)
Tadias Magazine
Events News
Published: Thursday, January 9th, 2014
New York (TADIAS) — The legendary Ethiopian keyboard player Hailu Mergia and the Washington DC-based Ethio-Jazz group Feedel Band will make an appearance at Drom in New York City this weekend as part of a musical showcase sponsored by the record labels Electric Cowbell and Barbes.
Hailu, who spends six days a week driving a cab to and from Dulles Airport in DC, emerged from obscurity this month hitting the performance stage for the first time since 1991. “Little of his customers are probably aware of the fact that the cabbie once was Ethiopia’s most popular keyboard player and band leader of the legendary Walias Band (which featured Mulatu Astatke, among pillars of the Addis scene),” Drom noted in its announcement. “The Walias Band’s much sought-after LP Teche Belew goes for thousands of dollars on EBAY (if it can be found there at all) and features the original version of the monstrous Muziqawi – arguably the best known Ethiopian tune worldwide.”
Feedel Band will also be playing at Silvana in Harlem on Friday, January 10th with saxophonist Moges Habte who was featured on the Ethiopiques Volume 13 album. Feedel Band is currently working with Producer Thomas Gobena who previously produced Debo Band’s self-titled debut album.
“Since our inception as a cohesive unit we’ve performed in numerous venues, for very diverse audiences,” Feedel Band said in a press release. “Our most recent collaboration was with Aster Aweke as her band, on her current Ewedihalehu U.S. tour. Our journey now brings us to New York City; hope you can join us for an evening of music and fun.”
At Drom on Saturday, Feedel Band starts at 10:15pm, while Hailu Mergia takes the stage at 11:00pm accompanied by a new band featuring multi-instrumentalist and producer Nikhil P. Yerawadekar of Low Mentality and Antibalas.
— If You Go
Hailu Mergia & Feedel Band at Drom NYC
Saturday, January 11th, 2014
85 Ave A (b/w 5th & 6th)
New York City, 10009
(212) 777-1157 www.dromnyc.com
The following list isn’t a top ten of the most famous groups. It’s meant to be more of a smorgasbord where you can taste the different kinds of artists making music in Ethiopia and its diaspora today. (MTV)
Electrified lyres. Auto-tuned vocal acrobatics. Undulating digital synths. Extremely funky dance moves, all happening above the shoulders. Those are just a few of the awesome things to expect when you go to see an Ethiopian pop music concert in 2013.
African pop music is steadily gaining exposure abroad as Nigerian afrobeats take over Europe, azonto goes viral and South African rappers get big record deals. Yet up in the Northeast corner of Africa, nothing of the sort is happening. The modern music of Ethiopia is very little known outside the country and its diaspora. That’s a shame, because Ethiopian music is amazing and sounds like nothing else on the continent — or in the rest of the world, for that matter.
If Ethiopia sounds different from the rest of Africa, that’s because the country is pretty different. It was the center of some of Africa’s most powerful historical empires, home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, and the only African territory (other than Liberia) to stay independent through the colonial era. Ethiopian languages are written in their own cool-looking alphabet. Culturally, it’s long been influenced by the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Ocean as well as the rest of Africa. Chances are you’ve tried that spongy injera bread once or twice.
Most people familiar with Ethiopian music know it for the “ethio-jazz” sound which thrived in 1970s Addis Ababa, during the final years of Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign. Musicians like Mulatu Astatke took American jazz and soul and refashioned it with the eerie, ancient-sounding pentatonic scales of Ethiopian traditional music, with swinging results.The sound has made popular abroad by the 28-disc Ethiopiques series put out by the French Buda Musique label over the last decade. Ethiopiques piqued the interest of beatniks the world over and has inspired a number of revivalist groups, like Daptone Records‘ Budos Band.
While bands in New York and Tokyo relive the 1970s, Ethiopia has moved on to make pop music for the present day. Those same ancient scales and melismatic vocals are there, but instead of jazz, the tracks are influenced by tinges of synthy funk, reggae and R&B. It’s a sound that was developed to a large degree by a guy named Abegaz Shiota, a Japanese-Ethiopian producer who has cut records for virtually every major Ethiopian pop singer over the past few decades. For much of that time, Shiota worked out of the Ethiopian community in Washington DC, where the music scene largely relocated during the military dictatorship years of the 70s and 80s.
“There’s a really strong focus on vocals and lyricism,” says Danny Mekonnen, leader of the Boston based “ethio-groove” group Debo Band. Mekonnen says he’s not crazy about the reliance on digital synth sounds in the musical arrangements, but he thinks there’s still a lot to love about Ethiopian pop. “A lot of artists are taking pop music forward by pulling elements from the past, not in a nostalgic way, but honoring the past to create something new.”
Unlike many other regions of Africa, where hip-hop and other foreign styles are coming to dominate the soundscape, Ethiopia sticks close to its roots in sound and style. A lot of younger artists are even including the traditional masengo fiddle and krar lyre on the tracks, playing along with the high-flying synthesizers. And while it’s true that the production-quality can be a bit chintzy, the success of South African Shangaan electro music and digital-traditional artists like Omar Souleyman has proven that younger “world music” audiences can get into the lo-fi aesthetics of the developing world. If you find yourself able to get down, Ethiopian pop music is hypnotizing and hot all at once.
The following is VOA News video interview with Munit and Jorg, a duet from Ethioia, who are currently on their first U.S. musical tour direct from Addis Ababa. (Courtesy photo)
A colleague told me about a duo act from Ethiopia coming through town by the name Munit & Jörg. I gave their music a listen on bandcamp and, though different than the more traditional or fusion sound I generally go for, there was something new and fresh in it I liked. A few days later Munit & Jörg came into Studio 4 here in Washington.
They were on tour in the Eastern US from Ethiopia to promote the release of their new CD, called 2. The stop in Washington was to perform at one my favorite D.C. venues, a chic little world music spot with a contemporary psychedelic decor called Tropicalia.
They coined the name Ethio-Acoustic Soul to describe their musical style. They play original compositions as well as arrangements of classic works such as “Yekermo Sew” by Ethio-Jazz master Mulatu Astatke and Ethiopian folk music.
Check out our interview and their live performance of three tracks off 2: “Trans-Africa Highway” (written by Munit & Jorg), “Yekermo Sew” (music by Mulatu Astatke), and “Hagare” (written by Munit & Jorg).
Photos: Munit and Jorg at Silvana in Harlem, NYC, Friday, July 12, 2013 (Tadias Magazine)
After leaving Ethiopia and her music career, Bitsat Seyoum has found her voice again with the help of the Emerge Festival in Australia. (Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui)
With headlines increasingly dominated by disheartening stories about asylum seekers, Multicultural Arts Victoria’s annual Emerge Festival acts as a hopeful counterpoint, celebrating the diversity refugees create here.
Now in its 10th year the festival, which officially launched last month in Footscray, runs over 10 weeks and commemorates the United Nations’ World Refugee Day and Refugee Week while celebrating the talents of new refugees and emerging artists who have recently settled in Australia. The festival also aims to help artists and musicians break into the local industry.
Bitsat Seyoum is well known in the local Ethiopian community and to fans of her renowned Footscray restaurant Addis Abeba. But before settling in Australia five years ago, she was a famous performer in the Ethiopian capital. Singing traditional Ethiopian popular songs, she has performed and recorded with some of the country’s biggest names: Ethio-jazz king Mulatu Astatke (arguably the country’s most famous musical export) arranged her first album, and she has teamed up with singer Tilahun Gessesse, composers Teddy Afro and Moges Teka, and lyricist Mulugeta Tesfaye.
Debo Band is an 11-member Boston-based group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by vocalist Bruck Tesfaye. (Courtesy Photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Friday, July 6, 2012
New York (TADIAS) – In its recent, thumbs-up highlight of Debo band’s self-titled first album NPR noted: “The particular beauty of Debo Band is that you don’t have to be an ethnomusicologist to love it: It’s all about the groove. Debo Band transforms the Ethiopian sound through the filter of its members’ collective subconscious as imaginative and plugged-in 21st-century musicians. Klezmer-haunted wails dart in and out between disco thumps. The swooning, hot romance of [Yefikir Wegene] bursts up from the same ground as the funky horns of Ney Ney Weleba. From that hazy shimmer of musical heat from faraway Addis, a thoroughly American sound emerges.”
In an interview with Tadias Magazine, Danny Mekonnen, the group’s Ethiopian-American founder, agreed with NPR’s description, yet also pointed out that even he finds it difficult to explain the music. “It’s funny now that I am talking to the press more and more I am asking myself the same question”, Danny told TADIAS. “What is it?,” he said, admitting that he is not sure how he would categorize Debo’s music genre.
“I don’t think its Ethio-jazz because to me Ethio-jazz is a very specific thing branded by Mulatu Astatke. Its gentle,” he said. “Initially I didn’t want to start an Ethio-jazz band because I was interested in a lot of different things and influenced by unapologetic funk music as well, such as someone like Alemayehu Eshete, which is really about groove, dancing, and strong lyrics. That kind of energy.”
Debo’s debut album features originals, such as DC Flower and Habesha, the latter based on the Diaspora experience where a young man is mesmerized by an attractive East African woman walking down the street that could be either Ethiopian or Eritrean, while the former is an instrumental giving prominence to Embilta flutes and traditional drums. “The two songs are noteworthy because we are carving our space as a Diaspora, Ethiopian-American band,” Danny said.
Danny, who holds a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from Harvard University, said he became exposed to Ethiopian music at an early age while growing up in Texas, mostly from his parents cassette-tape collections of old songs from the 1960′s and 70s. “I was just soaking it up like a sponge,” he said. “I was attracted to it because of its horn melodies and its closeness to American jazz.” He continued: “Later, in the early 2000′s I was introduced to the Éthiopiques CD series, which gave me really accessible context including photos. That also led me to meet some great people in the Diaspora. So when I entered Harvard I had already started Debo band and my scholarly focus was on Ethiopian music.”
Even though Debo’s sound is heavily indebted to the classics of the 1960′s and early ’70′s, Danny said he is sympathetic to those who say the overwhelming focus on that era alone undercuts the contributions of subsequent generations of Ethiopian musicians. “Unfortunately the focus on the so called ‘Golden Age of Ethiopian music’ sort of discredits what came after it,” he said. “For example, if you listen to Teddy Tadesse’s Zimita album, that was a pretty heavy record, very progressive, and at least ten years ahead of its time. You can hear its influence in singers that came later like Gossaye and Teddy Afro.” He added: “Zimita was entirely arranged by Abegaz Shiota. Abegaz and bass guitarist Henock Temesgen are two of the many contemporary Ethiopian musicians that I have the highest respect for. They were part of Admas Band that worked with everyone from Aster Aweke to Tilahun Gessesse and Mahmoud Ahmed.”
Danny said his friend Charles Sutton, Jr. – the Peace Corps volunteer who in 1969 arranged for Orchestra Ethiopia, then led by Tesfaye Lemma, to tour the United States under the name “The Blue Nile Group” – was also instrumental in helping him to connect with older Ethiopian musicians in the U.S. “Charlie arranged for me a private lesson with Melaku Gelaw, one of the top washint and kirar players of that generation,” Danny said.
According to Danny, Mr. Sutton was also responsible for suggesting the name “Debo” as the group’s identity. “I told Charlie I was searching for a band name and he spoke to an Ethiopian lady friend of his and she came up with the word,” Danny shared.
“Debo means communal labor or collective effort in Amharic” Danny said. “An easy word to pronounce for non-Ethiopians, short four-letter word and very simple. But it also strikes up a fun conversation among Ethiopians because it’s an old archaic word and not part of their daily usage.”
“Ethiopians tell me that it sounds like Dabo (bread),” Danny said laughing.
— If You Go: Debo Band is getting ready for their CD release tour starting next week and will be performing at The Bell House in Brooklyn, the U Street Music Hall in Washington D.C. as well as at the renowned Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville, PA. For a detailed listing of their upcoming tour please visit Debo Band’s website. You can learn more about Debo’s new album and pre-order at www.subpop.com.
Narrated by the athletes' friend Biruk - pictured above - the movie follows two girls over three years as they try to become professional runners. (Photo credit: Townofrunners.com)
Tadias Magazine
By Tigist Selam
Updated: Friday, April 20, 2012
New York (TADIAS) – As the countdown to the 2012 Olympic Games in London gets underway, a remote town in the Arsi region of Ethiopia called Bekoji is receiving international attention as the world’s capital of long-distance running. During the Beijing Olympics four years ago, runners from Bekoji won all four gold medals in the long-distance track events. The highland Arsi region is home to many of Ethiopia’s Olympic Champions, including Haile Gebrselassie, Tirunesh Dibaba, Kenenisa Bekele and Derartu Tulu.
A new film co-produced by British-Ethiopian Dan Demissie and directed by notable filmmaker Jerry Rothwell introduces us to the town of Bekoji through the eyes of two teenage female athletes as they progress from school track to national competitions. The 86 minute documentary is also part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, which is currently underway in New York.
In a recent interview with Tadias Magazine, the film’s award-wining director said the movie was inspired by Dan Demissie’s interest in the Ethiopian town and its legendary coach. “Dan came across the coach’s work in Bekoji when doing research and we knew that’s where we wanted to focus,” Rothwell said. “The coach used to be a school teacher, he has an incredible passion for what he does and all the athletes trust him.”
The story centres on Mr. Sentayehu Eshetu, a former elementary school Physical Education instructor, who discovered and trained several of the country’s top runners, most significantly Derartu Tulu, the first African woman to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. Narrated by their friend Biruk who runs a kiosk on the main road into town, the documentary follows two girls, Alemi and Hawii, over a three-year period from 2008 to 2011, as they strive to become professional runners. Through their struggle, the film gives a unique insight into the ambitions of young Ethiopians balancing their lives between the traditional and modern world.
Demissie proposed the idea of Town of Runners to Met Film Production back in 2008, while still a student at Met Film School. During his three years there he worked on the Bekoji project while fulfilling graduation requirements, and has now started graduate studies at the National Film and Television School in the U.K.
Demissie said working on the movie was personally rewarding for him. “It was my first time going to Ethiopia and I got to know the place where I was from,” Demissie told Tadias. “It sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s true I fell in love with Ethiopia.” He said: “It was the best experience of my life.”
Dan Demissie (left) and Jerry Rothwell. (Photo credit: Townofrunners.com)
The coach Mr. Sentayehu Eshetu. (Photo credit: Townofrunners.com)
“I always saw how Ethiopia was portrayed in the media,” Demissie continued. “It’s always famine and war and all of these kinds of negative stereotypes that wasn’t a fair representation.” He added: “I wanted to make a film that countered that image, give it more of a balance. It was my dream to make a film about Ethiopia. I read about this small town and I thought that it was a good story. It’s about people creating their own destiny. That’s what attracted to me it. Later on I found out that I had distant relatives in the region.”
For Rothwell, neither Africa nor running is new. “I’d spent 5 years of my childhood in Kenya and my hero at that age was Kip Keino [the retired Kenyan track and field athlete and two-time Olympic gold medalist] and then much later my daughter had taken up the sport seriously and so I was spending a lot of time by athletics tracks in the U.K.,” Rothwell said. “And Ethiopia is just such a beautiful place to shoot, it is such a rich country.”
“It was almost a coming-of-age film,” Rothwell added. “It was wonderful to see a teenager grow from being 14 years old grow to 17, and to have shared so much time with them.”
But Demissie pointed out that language was a problem for the mostly European film crew. “Back in England, I listened to my parents speak Amharic at home and I would respond in English. In Ethiopia, however, we were in a place where they talked Oromiffa and Amharic, so that was pretty challenging at times,” he said.
Rothwell quipped: “It was great to see Dan getting better at his Amharic.”
“Sometimes there is just so much bureaucracy,” Demissie added, speaking about other challenges of making a film in Ethiopia. Rothwell agreed: “Because there is control of the media, it was difficult at times to get permission to shoot.”
And where are Alemi and Hawii today? “Hawii is on her way back to the running club and she is building herself up there after her injuries,” Demissie said. “Alemi left her running club, but we are not so sure why. It just recently happened.” Rothwell shared: “When we first started to ask the coach about runners, we were interested in how achievement would affect the subjects. It wasn’t about who were the best runners. We followed the coach to one of his competitions and we saw how strong their friendship was.”
The Town Of Runners soundtrack features legendary band leader and father of Ethio Jazz, Mulatu Astatke, and additional recordings from Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou, as well as a score by the British composer Vincent Watts.
“It’s a great score and the pre-recorded music is amazing,” Demissie said. “I want to thank the project manager Samuel Tesfaye who was key on the ground. We couldn’t have done it without him.”
— Town of Runners will screen at Tribeca Online Film Festival on Thursday, April 19, at 6:45 PM.
Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali Ensemble concert in celebration of St. Patrick's Day in Los Angeles this weekend also features a selection of East African music by DJ Lesanu "Sonny" Abegaze. (Photo by Farah Sosa)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Friday, March 16, 2012
Los Angeles (TADIAS) – Lesanu (Sonny) Abegaze, aka DJ Son Zoo, believes this weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day concert featuring Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali Ensemble at the Del Monte Speakeasy in Los Angeles will be a joyful occasion.
“I’ll be dj’ing for this show which is taking place in Venice, California,” Sonny said. “It falls on St. Patrick’s day so it should be a festive time.”
The band leader is Todd Simon, a trumpeter, composer, and arranger, well-versed in the Ethiopian Jazz tradition, having performed with Mulatu Astatke for the inaugural Mochilla Timeless concert series. Ethio-Cali followed up their debut concert last summer at the Hammer Museum/UCLA with a sold out performance opening up for the Budos Band last month at the Echoplex. The group features, among others, Alan Lightner, Dexter Story, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Tracy Wannomae, and Kamasi Washington.
(Sonny, right, with his friend Moises at a Southern California record store – Courtesy photo).
Sonny, whose parents moved from Gonder to California, via Sudan, when he was an infant said he became attracted to Ethiopian music when he visited his ancestral home in his college years. “I was born in Sudan, but moved to the U.S. when only a few months old,” Sonny told us. “I grew up in various parts of Cali, and later had the opportunity to live and study in Ghana during my undergrad years.” He added: “This was when I travelled to Ethiopia for the first time, and really got into Ethiopian music. While abroad, I also started a radio show at the University of Ghana in Legon, which is how I got introduced to the whole world of dj’ing.”
Regarding the Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali Ensemble, Sonny said: “They play music inspired by the golden era of Ethio-Jazz, and also bring some modern elements into the mix through some original compositions. The members of the band come from diverse backgrounds and all have a deep appreciation for Ethiopian music.”
As to growing up in California, Sonny quipped: “I find myself eating way more burritos than I do Injera, kinda comes with the territory when you live in the city of angels.”
— If You Go:
Saturday March 17, 2012
The Del Monte Speakeasy
9:00 pm – 2:00 am
21+
Cover: $5.00
At the Del Monte Speakeasy
Order pre-sale tickets at http://TBCTickets.com/
Venue URL: http://townhousevenice.com
A Conversation With Elias Negash About His New CD “Jazzed Up”
Elias Negash, second from left, is the leader of Retroz Band - a jazz ensemble based in the Bay Area. Members of the group, left to right, are: Anthony Lincoln, Lead vocals & Tenor Sax, Elias Negash, Piano, Keyboards & Vocals, Louie Moon Robinson, L & R. Guitar & Vocals, Mark Williams, Up.& E. Bass, Bob Marshall, Drums. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
Art Talk | By Tadias Staff
Updated: Thursday, February 16, 2012
New York (TADIAS) – The latest CD by California-based musician Elias Negash, whose songwriting combines Ethiopian music with international influences, is entitled Jazzed Up. “It is a reflection of the various dynamic genres incorporated into the music,” Elias said in a recent interview with Tadias Magazine. “Ethio-smooth is included along with R&B, Reggae and Salsa.” He added: ” In so doing, the music has been refreshed and jazzed up. On this CD I am using musicians that are very good friends of mine. The five-piece group have played varying styles of music in the past, but currently we are focusing on a fusion of Jazz, Ethio- Jazz, Rhythm & Blues and other world music. These are the musicians I will be traveling with for years to come. We are called the ‘The Retroz Band.’”
Elias, who was born in Ethiopia and moved to the United States in 1971, has a long resume in the music industry. He was one of the pioneering figures in the Reggae and African music scenes in Northern California during the 1970s. He performed with groups such as Obeah, Axum, Caribbean All Stars and the Rastafarians. After a brief stint in Los Angeles working on the Royal Princess Cruise ship in the 1980s, Elias appeared on a sound track for the television movie Glitz and also performed in the TV series Murder She Wrote.
Elias now owns and operates SophEl Recordings, a music studio located in Oakland Hills, California that opened in September 2000. He says he enjoys spending time in this quite, residential neighborhood. “I often work with fellow music producer Gordon Brislawn, who was iTunes’ first call for 42 of iTunes front-page exclusives,” he said. “We have all the latest equipments to make any music project number one.”
Elias Negash at a recording session in Berkeley, CA. (Courtesy photo)
Regarding his childhood in Ethiopia Elias said: “I was born in Addis Ababa and grew up in a very big house in ‘Riche’ on the road to Debre Zeit. The house belonged to my grandfather. A couple of years before St. Joseph school was established I went to German School – Deutsche Schule – kindergarten in Addis Ababa for a year, then to Nativity Catholic Cathedral School for my first grade. And when St. Joseph school opened in 1960, I was transferred to second grade to persue my elementary and high school education.”
After completing high school Elias moved to New York with his uncle who was a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “Living in upstate New York for almost two years at a young age was a very cold experience,” he said. “My brother was living in Northern California at the time, and so he would tell me how the weather was so similar to our motherland. That really convinced me to move to California.”
Discussing his favorite musicians, Elias said his musical taste and influences are wide-ranging. “As far as Ethiopian musicians are concerned I like Mulatu Astatke for being the father of Ethio Jazz,” he said. “And Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s Classic piano solo album. Among male vocalists I listen to Tilahun Gessesse, Mahamoud Ahmed and Girma Beyene.” He continued: “Non-Ethiopians would be Ray Charles, Bob Marley, pianist Ramsey Lewis Ahmad Jamal, Booker T & The MG’s, Bill Evens, Jimmy Smith, Earl Garner and Oscar Peterson.”
Returning to the topic of his latest album “it reflects an experience of dialing up any baseline to a positive atmosphere,” Elias said. “It is my hope that listeners feel jazzed up.”
— You can learn more about the artist at www.eliasnegash.com.
To listen to and order the CD visit: www.cdbaby.com.
Los Angeles (Tadias) – The Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles presents Todd Simon and friends for an evening of Ethiopian rhythms and melodies on Sunday, August 14.
Todd Simon is a trumpeter, composer, and arranger, well-versed in the Ethiopian Jazz tradition, having performed with Mulatu Astatke for the inaugural Mochilla Timeless concert series. On this special occasion, Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali Ensemble will pay homage to the golden era of Ethiopian Jazz, along with original compositions from Todd’s forthcoming project.
The group includes Mark De Clive, Kamasi Washington, Kirubel Assefa, Alan Lightner, Woody Jackson, Dexter Story, Kelela Mizanekristos.
DJ Sonny Abegaze starts the set with traditional Ethiopian Jazz.
— If You Go: Summer Sunset Concert: Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali Ensemble
Sunday, August 14, 2011
4 pm
Free concert Learn more at the Fowler Museum’s website.
Mulatu Astatke, the godfather of Ethiopian jazz music, is often flying around the world performing sell-out shows so I was lucky to find him at his home in Addis Ababa surrounded by art, conjuring up magic on his vibraphone – which looks like a giant xylophone.
He described the recipe for Ethio-jazz which he first cooked up 42 years ago while studying music in the United States.
“Most of our Ethiopian music is based on five notes [pentatonic]. What I did was fuse the five tones with 12 tones. For many years I’ve been experimenting and the more I do that the more complex it gets,” Mr Mulatu told the BBC.
Above:Russ Gershon, Charlie Kohlhase, Alemayehu Eshete, Mahmoud Ahmed at Stonehendge, June 2008. (Courtesy, RG)
Tadias Magazine
By Liben Eabisa
Published: Monday, January 24th, 2011
New York (Tadias) – Saxophonist and Composer Russ Gershon is the founder and bandleader of Either/Orchestra (E/O), the large American jazz ensemble also known for its Ethiopian song selections and notable collaborations with musicians such as Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Teshome Mitiku, Getatchew Mekurya, Tsedenia Markos, Bahta Hewet, Michael Belayneh, and Hana Shenkute.
As Gershon tells it, his first introduction to Ethiopian music came in 1988 when he heard Mahmoud’s Ere Mela Mela. But he did not fall in love with Ethio-jazz until his encounter in 1993 with a compilation album entitled Ethiopian Groove: the Golden 70′s – produced by Francis Falceto as part of the Ethiopiques CD series on the French label Buda Musique.
Later, as a graduate student at Tufts University, Gershon named his masters thesis The Oldest Place, a string quartet inspired by the music and instruments of Ethiopia. His team eventually traveled to the country at Francis Falceto’s invitation to perform at the 2004 Ethiopian Music Festival in Addis Ababa. Either/Orchestra became the first U.S. big band to appear in Ethiopia since Duke Ellington’s Orchestra in 1973. The 2004 concert resulted in a remarkable double-disc set called Ethiopiques 20: The Either/Orchestra Live in Addis, which was described by critics at the time as “the best live album of the year—in any genre—and one of the E/O’s finest albums.”
Ethiopian music is just one of the many international sounds that E/O is known for. The band members are an eclectic bunch hailing from several countries, including the U.S., the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Mexico. The ensemble experiments with various grooves, often mixed with Afro-Caribbean and African influences.
Gershon, who was born in New York in 1959 and grew up in Westport, Connecticut, credits his global taste in his youth to the time that he spent summers working for his grandfather in New York’s Garment District, not far from the record stores and concert venues of Manhattan.
Either/Orchestra celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and will mark the event with a reunion show at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City on February 11th, 2011.
We recently interviewed Russ Gershon.
Above: Mahmoud Ahmed, Francis Falceto and Russ Gershon, Paris 2006.
Tadias: Please tell us a bit about how Either/Orchestra was first formed and
what kind of music you wanted to create/play.
Russ Gershon: I started the E/O in 1985 as a rehearsal band, never expecting to tour and make records, to have the fantastic adventure we’ve had. I was coming off of a year at Berklee College of Music, following several years of playing in fairly successful original pop bands, and I was just getting a handle on writing arrangements and understanding the techniques of jazz. I was a big admirer of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, Gil Evans, and other unconventional large jazz groups, and wanted to do something like that. I should also add that I had been a radio DJ for many years, and was used to having all the recorded music in the world at my fingertips, trying to put together interesting combinations of music from all over the map.
So I invited a motley mob of musicians to come to my house and play music I was writing. Everybody had a good time, liked the music, and within a couple of months we had our first gig, in the children’s room of the Cambridge MA public library. We were immediately semi-popular and just went from there, making albums and touring. I think my experience in pop and dance bands made me more aware than most jazz musicians of connecting with audiences.
Tadias: Your music infuses Caribbean, Latin American and East African beats, tunes, and rhythms with the free-flow of jazz. Would you consider yourself an international jazz band?
RG: The E/O is indeed an international jazz band in several ways: we have members from the US, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico; we play music with many Afro-Caribbean and African influences, and of course we’ve gotten thoroughly involved with Ethiopian music. All American music has such a huge African component, through [African-Americans], so that the music of three continents flows naturally and easily together. I’ve also been a big fan of African music, starting with Fela Kuti, South African jazz and field recordings of traditional music.
Tadias: Over the years, you have worked with some of the best-known Ethiopian musicians. Who/what was the catalyst? How did you discover Ethiopian music?
RG: In 1988 I heard Mahmoud’s “Ere Mela Mela” LP and it made an impression, and I heard Aster Aweke live in about 1990, but I really fell in love with Ethiopian music in 1993 when a friend brought back the compilation “Ethiopian Groove: the Golden 70′s” from France, where Francis Falceto had assembled it from some of the best tracks recorded in Addis at the end of the imperial period. I loved the horns, the passionate singing, the modes, the way it took American influences and spiced them with musical berbere, making something familiar and new at the same time.
After a couple of years I started arranging Ethiopian songs as instrumentals for the E/O, and both the band and the audiences loved it immediately. Teshome Mitiku heard our recording of his song Yezamed Yebada, and called me up, we became friends. Soon after that, Francis contacted me and began telling me about the history of music in Ethiopia and playing rare recordings for me — material that he has been releasing on the Ethiopiques series. In 2003, he and Heruy Arefe-Aiene invited us to play in the 2004 Ethiopian Music Festival, and we got deeper into the music to prepare for the trip. While we were in Addis in January 2004, we met Mulatu, Alemayehu, Getachew, Tsedenia Markos, Bahta Hewet, Michael Belayneh and others and invited them to play on our concert, which was eventually turned into Ethiopiques #20. This led to collaborations with Mulatu in the States, Mahmoud in Paris in 2006, Hana Shenkute, Setegn Atanaw and Minale Dagnew, and on and on. Most recently we finally started working with Teshome, debuting at the Chicago Jazz Festival. He’ll be featured in our upcoming 25th Anniversary Concert in New York on February 11, and we’ll be playing with Mahmoud in Cambridge, MA on March 24 and Amherst, MA on March 25.
Mulatu Astatke and Vicente Lebron of Either/Orchestra, Addis Ababa, 2004
Teshome Mitiku and Either/Orchestra at the Chicago Jazz Festival, September 2010
Setegn Atanaw, Minale Dagnew, Hana Shenkute, Joel Yennior, Colin Fisher, MA 2006
Tadias: You are also credited for helping to popularizing Ethio–Jazz in the U.S., especially through the Ethiopiques CD release as well as subsequent tours and performances. What would you says is your most memorable concert featuring Ethiopian artists?
RG: There have been so many amazing concerts with our Ethiopian friends that I can hardly pick one. The concert in London with Mahmoud, Alemayehu, Getachew and Mulatu was pretty great, one in Milan with Mulatu and Mahmoud was off the charts, Chicago with Teshome….
Tadias: What’s your favorite Ethiopian tune?
RG: More than a favorite Ethiopian tune, I’ll say that anchi hoye is my favorite mode. We jazzers love dissonant harmonies, and we can find them in anchi hoye. I even wrote string quartet – violins, viola, cello – based on it, thinking about masinko and with a section called Azmari. I also arrange Altchalkum (bati minor) for the Boston Pops Orchestra, and they played it beautifully.
Tadias: Regarding your trip to Ethiopia, what was that experience like?
RG: The visit to Ethiopia in 2004 was a wonderful, life-changing experience for me and the band. We were concerned that people wouldn’t approve of how we were playing Ethiopian songs, but instead they were very interested and enthusiastic. Also, hearing Ethiopian music at the source – and seeing the dancing – really helped us to understand the rhythms and melody. And finally, it is an important experience for Americans, with our wasteful, materialistic culture, to have a chance to see an African city, where so many people have so few things and get by on little. It reminds us that the most important things in our lives are our relationships with friends, family, everybody – and that music is a beautiful way to develop and expand these relationships, across borders, languages, generations. In the U.S. it’s easy for people to hide in their own space, to play with their toys, to NOT relate to other people. Of course it’s great to have the comfort, safety, conveniences that we have here – but it’s not nearly enough.
Tadias: In a recent article Boston Globe noted that your “wide-open sensibility” is rooted in your exposure to the New York Music scene in 1970s. Can you describe your time in New York and how it influenced you?
RG: NY in the 70′s was an exciting place to hear jazz. The spirit of Coltrane was still very much alive, Miles and his former sidemen and others were bringing electric instruments and grooves into jazz, the Midwestern avant-garde was arriving in town. There were concerts at Carnegie Hall, traditional clubs, and artists were taking advantage of the decline in the city’s economy to find cheap space and open performance lofts. Every generation of jazz, from Count Basie and Benny Carter to Lester Bowie and Woody Shaw, was alive and playing. I was an avid concert and club goer from about 1975 on, and I feel fortunate to have heard just about every living legend and the rising generations.
The Either/Orchestra at the Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 2004
E/O trombonist Joel Yennior with the Yared School Trombonists, Addis Ababa, 2004
Tadias: Please tell us about your upcoming 25th Anniversary concert in New York.
What should your fans expect?
RG: The 25th Anniversary Concert will be an amazing collection of players who have all contributed to the E/O over the years. We’ll have the ten current members of the band plus 16 former members, plus Teshome. Four drummers, seven saxophones, five trombones, and so many more. The alums include jazz stars like John Medeski, Matt Wilson and Josh Roseman, and great hard working sidemen. We’ll touch on all the eras and styles of our music, and sometimes have 25 musicians on stage. It will be spectacular, Teshome is representing our Ethiopian connection, and we’ll play Yezamed Yebada and a new Ambassel that we wrote together last summer. We may even play an instrumental version of Muluquen Mellesse’s Keset Eswa Bicha.
Tadias: Is there anything else, you would like to share with our readers?
RG:Le Poisson Rouge is not a really big place, so I recommend buying tickets in advance and showing up on time. The show is 7 to 10 pm, very early, then we’re done. We can all go out for injera!
Tadias: Thank you Russ and see you on February 11th.
–
Band leader Russ Gershon (L) with Either/Orchestra members. (Photo credit: Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe)
Tadias Magazine
Events News
Published: Wednesday, Januray 12, 2011
New York (TADIAS) – Either/Orchestra, the Boston-based jazz band that popularized Ethiopian music in the United States through collaboration with legends such as Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Teshome Mitiku and saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, will celebrate its 25th anniversary at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City on February 11.
“The show at Le Poisson Rouge will be a special occasion, the spirited union of several generations of musicians, ranging from 20 to 56 in age, from all over the U.S. and Latin America, who collectively make up the ongoing endeavor known as the Either/Orchestra,” the band said in a press release.
“An added bonus will be legendary Ethiopian singer Teshome Mitiku, who began collaborating with the E/O in a headlining performance at last September’s Chicago Jazz Festival. Teshome was a member of the Soul Ekos, one of the most popular band in East Africa in the 1960s, and a pioneer in bringing American styles into Ethiopian music.”
The event will feature more than two dozen musicians that have collaborated with the band over the years including John Medeski, Matt Wilson, and Josh Roseman, among others. Per the venue’s website: “The concert will survey 25 years of original music, radical reinterpretations of jazz and pop tunes, and include a healthy dose of Ethiopian flavor, represented by the legendary singer Teshome Mitiku.”
If you Go:
Either/Orchestra 25th Anniversary
February 11, from 7 to 10 pm.
New York’s Le Poisson Rouge
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.
Video: The Either/Orchestra with Ethiopian Singer Mahmoud Ahmed: Bemin Sebeb Litlash
Highlights from the most popular Ethiopian Diaspora arts and popular culture stories of 2010 via Tadias Magazine.
Tadias Magazine
By Tigist Selam
Updated: Monday, December 27, 2010
New York (TADIAS) – As we wrap up the year and review the contributions in the area of literature, fine arts, film, music and enterprunership, I can’t help but notice that it has been a year of rejuvenation for arts and popular culture among the Ethiopian Diaspora — from the publication of Dinaw Mengestu’s How To Read The Air, to Julie Mehretu’s Grey Area, and from Kenna’s Summit on the Summit to Dawit Kebede’s Press Freedom Award, this year was packed with big achievements and new beginnings. As you may notice, there are many other great stories that are not noted here. It was a tough list to choose from. As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.
The award-winning Ethiopian American novelist and writer Dinaw Mengestu, whose work has become a voice for his generation, has given us a new gem by way of his book entitled How To Read The Air. As The New York Times notes, the young writer – who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – populates his novels “by exiles, refugees, émigrés and children of the African diaspora…” This book, of course, goes far beyond the Ethiopian American experience, even though Dinaw does extremely well in this regard as well. As he put it succinctly during a recent interview, “It’s less about trying to figure out how you occupy these two cultural or racial boundaries and more about what it’s like when you are not particularly attached to either of these two communities.” The new book follows the author’s highly successful début novel The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, described by Bethonie Butler in the Washingtonian magazine as “a poignant novel set in DC about immigration, gentrification, and assimilating to the new amid memories of the past.” The reason why I love this New York Times bestseller is because the substance of the book mirrors my own feelings and reflection about my own generation.
2. Julie Mehretu’s ‘Grey Area’
Artist Julie Mehretu
I couldn’t help but lose and find myself in each of Julie’s Mehretu’s paintings at the Guggenheim Museum earlier this year. She is not only one of the most admired American female artists, but also the most high-priced Ethiopian born artists of all time. Her work ‘Untitled 1’ sold for $US1,0022,500 at Sotheby’s in 2010. Her collection of semiabstract works displayed at the Guggenheim was inspired by “a multitude of sources, including historical photographs, urban planning grids, modern art, and graffiti, and explores the intersections of power, history, dystopia, and the built environment, along with their impact on the formation of personal and communal identities.”
3. Davey and Rasselas’ Atletu (The Athlete)
Abebe Bikila (SBCC Film Reviews)
I have my fingers crossed this will be the first Ethiopian film that will win the Oscars. But either way, the story of Abebe Bekila – the barefooted Ethiopian man who stunned the world by winning Olympic gold in Marathon at the 1960 games in Rome – is one to be told and in this regard the movie is doing a superb job. I really hope it will get the recognition it deserves in the coming year.
(Meklit, Tsehai Poetry Jam – L.A.’s Little Ethiopia)
This sweet and amazingly talented singer/song-writer takes me on a musical journey to the heart of the Bay Area and Brooklyn, as well as to the countryside of Ethiopia. I have never heard such a sincere, poetic and soulful blend of American and Ethiopian music. Reviewers have compared Meklit’s voice to that of the legendary singer Nina Simone. “Once you hear her smooth and silky voice it will be hard to forget it,” NPR’s Allison Keyes reported. Meklit obtained a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Yale University before moving to San Francisco to pursue her true love – music. NPR’s guest host described Hadero’s sound as “a unique blend of jazz, Ethiopia, the San Francisco art scene and visceral poetry…It paints pictures in your head as you listen,” she said. I can’t agree more.
5. Haile Gerima’s Film ‘Teza’
Mypheduh Films
Haile Gerima’s award winning film ‘Teza’ continues to draw crowds at special screenings around the country. The most notable in 2010 was the film’s premiere in Los Angeles on Monday, September 13th, honoring the late Teshome H. Gabriel, a long serving Professor at UCLA and a leading international figure on third world and post-colonial cinema. The director himself is a professor of film studies in the East Coast. Per NYT: “Among the courses Haile Gerima teaches at Howard University is one called ‘Film and Social Change.’ But for Mr. Gerima, an Ethiopian director and screenwriter who has lived here since the 1970s in what he calls self-exile, that subject is not just an academic concern: it is also what motivates him to make films with African and African-American themes.” Personally for me though, there has never been such an accurate, honest, insightful and simply well-made film about the Ethiopian experience abroad and in the homeland. This film continues to influence my professional, but more importantly, personal life.
6. Marcus Samuelsson’s ‘Red Rooster’
Marcus Samuelsson at the Red Rooster Harlem
I hope Marcus’ long awaited restaurant brings together artists, musicians, writers, and alike from the Ethiopian Diaspora and beyond right into the heart of Harlem. From the menu to the décor, I am certain that I won’t have to drag my downtown friends to hangout uptown. But for Marcus, it is clear that the aim is much bigger than fine dining. In a way, it is a contribution to the revitalization of this historic neighbourhood and we salute him for that.
7. Mulatu Astatke Still on The Move
Mulatu Astatke (Source:Telegraph)
The father of Ethiopian Jazz doesn’t seem to stop. As Peter Culshaw wrote of him on the UK paper Telegraph earlier this year, “At the age of 66, Mulatu Astatke is having the time of his life. The jazz composer and performer from Ethiopia is in the midst of a full-blown Indian summer in his career. He received a huge boost when influential film-maker Jim Jarmusch used his music for his 2005 film Broken Flowers, and was also a key figure in the 2007 The Very Best of Ethiopiques compilation, one of the most unlikely best-sellers of the last decade. Once heard, Astatke’s music is not easily forgotten. His signature vibraphone playing style uses the distinctive five-note Ethiopian scale and is like jazz from a parallel universe, by turns haunting, romantic and a touch sleazy, as though the soundtrack to some seductive espionage B-movie.” Enjoy the following video.
8. First Addis Foto Fest
Curated by the exceptionally talented and award-winning photographer Aida Muluneh, this festival showcased works by notable visual artists from around the world at venues throughout Addis Ababa for the very first time. My hope is that, with events such as Addis Foto Fest, local artists continue to network with international artists from all disciplines. Here is an interview with Aida Muluneh about photography.
9. Dawit Kebede’s ‘Press Freedom Award
Dawit Kebede at CPJ Awards 2010, NYC
As the editor of Awramba Times, an independent and local Ethiopian newspaper, he spent almost two years in prison after reporting on the Ethiopian election in 2005. Five years later he receives an international award, encouraging others to write without fear. He is an inspiration to many around the world, particularly to those in our profession.
Inspired by his father’s water-borne disease, Ethiopian born Academy Award-nominated Hip Hop artist Kenna climbed the Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about the global water crisis. He was followed by an MTV crew. I salute Kenna on his artistry, as well as dedication to educate the youth on global issues affecting all of us. Watch Kenna talk about the project.
— About the Author: Tigist Selam is host of TADIAS TV. She is a writer and actress based in New York and Germany. (Tigist’s photograph by Ingrid Hertfelder).
Above:USA celebrated ‘The National Coffee Day’ on Sept 29.
Coffee is the second most consumed in the world, next to oil.
UK Today News
Coffee originated in Ethiopia back in 15th century and since has increased its fans list, the number of consumers. People have coffee because either they love to, are addicted to or to keep them fresh at work. Coffee actually has become the necessity of an individual’s life.
From left - The drummer Tesfaye mekonnen (Hodo); guest singer from Asmara police orchestra, Teshome Mitiku & Bass and sax player Fekade Amde Meskel of Soul Ekos Band. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Martha Z. Tegegn
Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010
Washington, D.C. (TADIAS)- Part two of our exclusive interview with Ethiopian music legend Teshome Mitiku highlights his reasons for his abrupt departure from Ethiopia forty years ago, his favorite song from that era and his experience working with Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz. Teshome is scheduled to accompany the Either/Orchestra at the 32nd Annual Chicago Jazz Festival in September.
You were a teenager when you started performing in clubs. How did your parents feel about that?
My father had already passed away. My mother was very supportive. My mother’s only concern was that I continue to go to school, but she never stopped me from playing, just worried about me. She is a great mother. She was a great singer too. She used to sing Bati, Ambasel, Anchi Hoye. Her words and lyrics were poetry and they are very touching. I mean I used to sit and cry as a child when my mother used to sing while she was washing clothes, ironing or cooking. So I guess my mother’s emotional singing had an influence on me. My mother was always my friend. As a teenager when I started working in clubs and begun making money, I used to take her to a hair dresser, to a café, piazza, everywhere and whatever she wants I used to buy. My mom always came first for me. So I have always done that, I still do that. She is a beautiful woman with a heart of gold. My mother loves her life, even today she tells me “as long as you are doing good I am happy.” What I really appreciate about her is she brought me up as a care-free kid. She allowed me the freedom that I needed. And when I left the country, I thanked her for it.
You left the country abruptly. When did you leave Ethiopia and why?
I left the country on January 27, 1970. The last few years of the 1960s was a very critical time in Ethiopia. Even though the music scene was upbeat, there was also an undercurrent of social discontent. We were not political at all, but we were very popular at the time and people used to come from all corners to watch us. I believe the security people had an eye on us. So, at the end what happened was that we did a show at the Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa. That was, as I recall, the last major show I did in Ethiopia.
Why so?
Because they made it so, they made it the last time, it wasn’t me. When Soul Ekos band was performing at the University, there were about four to five thousand people there. I mean Lideta Adrarash (Hall) was packed; everybody was there. It was a period when students were engaged in open rebellion against the authorities. So the army and the police were there keeping an eye on the kids and the situation. So when we took the stage Seifu Yohannes did the first three songs. And when my turn came and I was warming up to do the usual popular songs, the crowed started to demand that I play Fano Tesemara. I replied “I cannot sing that right now, are you crazy?”
Why? Was it a political song?
Oh yes (laughter), Fano Tesemara was a political song (Fano Tesemara ende Ho Chi Minh ende Che Guevara). Then I said, I can sing it for you but can you handle what’s gonna happen afterwards? The kids shouted “yes Teshe come on.” And I said to them let me first sing Almaz Min Eda New. They would not have any of it. I mean they were demanding that I sing Fano first. Then I had to speak with the police about it. They were vigilantly watching, the army, the Kibur Zebegna (the imperial guard), all of them were there with their AK-47s. The security was literally on the stage. So I asked the army guy, “what do you want me to do now?” By then the students were already singing Fano Tesemara and they were saying Meret larashu (land to the tiler) and so on. I turned to the the army captain again. He said “Go ahead, you can sing it.” The crowd went wild.
You took a chance.
Yes I did, I was allowed to sing it, but that was the end of happy and innocent days for me. I never had any more peace after that. I was continuously harassed, investigated, and was suddenly asked to pay three hundred and fifty thousand Ethiopian Birr in tax. I was shocked. I said what? Then, once I was scheduled to perform at Zula club they came and took me to Sostegna tabia (3rd police station) and kept me for three days with all sorts of fabricated accusations. I had the sense that they were planning to put me away for good. That’s when I left Ethiopia.
Where did you go?
I had a visa for Sweden and Denmark, and I went to Copenhagen for a while.
Before we talk about your years abroad, what is your favorite Soul Ekos song from those days?
Woooooooow, wow wow, very hard question…they all hold special place in my life but I think Mot Adeladlogn I love the poetry. It is almost like Romeo and Juliet. It is romantic.
During your brief but illustrious career in Ethiopia, you also worked with several Ethiopian greats, including Mulatu Astatke. What was that experience like?
Working with Mulatu is like having a buffet of music. Mulatu is music himself. I have collaborated with him on many occasions. I worked with him way back in the 60s and later in the 90s here. We did Wolo songs together. I love working with Mulatu. He gives the singer or the artist a chance to express himself. He never competes with you or tries to push you. He always tries to understand the music first. Once he gets it, then he lets you express it. When you work with him it is you who is working. I wish I could work with him more often than I did.
This photo was taken at Bingo Club in Asmara in 1969. Shown third from left is Theodros ( Teddy )
Mitiku, the 9th person is Alula Yohannes and next to him is Teshome Mitiku. (Courtesy photo)
The band members and friends vacationing in Asmara, where they used to play on weekends at
Kangawe Station, an American Military base. Teshome is almost seated. (Courtesy photo.)
Above: Contestants at the 2010 Miss Ethiopia Pageant in July
were promised that the winner will be awarded a brand new car.
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Tuesday, August 10, 2010
New York (Tadias) – The winner of the 2010 Miss Ethiopia pageant was to receive a brand new ride, the Chinese made Lifan 320, except the car dealership Yangfan Motors in Addis Ababa, who is the announced sponsor of the event, says it never made a written agreement to deliver the prize.
According to Addis Fortune, “Ethiopian Village Adventure Playground (EVAP) is to wait until Thursday, August 12, 2010, to see whether Yangfan will award a Lifan 320 to the newest Miss Ethiopia. Failing to deliver the prize may result in being taken to court while Yangfan, in turn, threatened to sue EVAP for defamation.”
Melkam Michael, a sophomore at Addis Abeba University Law School, was named winner of the prize last month at a ceremony held at the Hilton Addis, featuring celebrity judges including Mulatu Astatke and Meseret Mebrate.
The pageant organizers, who had publicized the award in advance, accused Yangfan Motors of canceling its commitment at the last minute and stealing their copy of the written agreement. According to Murad Mohammed, director of EVAP, Yangfan Motors took his copy of the written document without his knowledge, and he has been unable to regain possession of it. “It is not the 18th or 19th century where people only agree on something orally,” he told Fortune.
Yangfan Motors’ local Marketing Manager William Wong rejected the claims, denying the existence of such a binding contract. “There was no agreement to cancel,” he said. “We did not agree to give them a car and because EVAP did not carry out its responsibilities, we are not going to give them any discount.”
The report, however, points to another document that indicates the existence of a prior understanding. “Yangfan Motors had sent EVAP a letter on April 23, 2010, complaining that they had failed to promote the company on public media and billboards. The company demanded that the problems be corrected within one week or it would be ‘forced to cancel our entitled agreement of cooperation,’ according to the letter. ”
Meanwhile, Melkam says although she is happy to be named Miss Ethiopia 2010, she would not mind to sit behind the wheel. “I would be happy if I get the promised car,” she said.
— Cover image: Group photo of Miss Ethiopia 2010 contestants (WorldShowBiz.info)
Either/Orchestra: A Secret Concert with Teshome Mitiku, a Great Ethiopian Voice
Above:Members of the former Ekos Band: from the left Alula
Yohannes, Tesfaye Mekonnen, Tamrat Ferenji, Amha Eshete,
Teshome Mitiku, Feqade Amdemesqel & Tewodros Mitiku.- CP
Tadias Magazine
Events News
Published: Saturday, July 17, 2010
New York (Tadias) – Either/Orchestra, the American jazz band that popularized Ethiopian classics in the United States through collaboration with legends such as Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete and saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, has an upcoming show at the prestigious Chicago Jazz Festival on September 4th featuring Teshome Mitiku.
In the late 60′s, Teshome, along with his brother and alto saxophonist Theodros “Teddy” Mitiku, trumpeter Tamrat Ferendji, bassist Fekade Amde-Meskel, drummer Tesfaye Mekonnen, guitarist Alula Yohannes and singer Seifu Yohannes, joined to form the influential Soul Ekos Band – the first independent band to be recorded in Ethiopia. According to the artist’s website: “The band released numerous songs, including four hits written by Teshome: Gara Ser New Betesh, Yezemed Yebada, Mot Adeladlogn and Hasabe.”
Yezemed Yebada was later included on the first of the Ethiopiques CD series where it was discovered by the Either/Orchestra band leader Russ Gershon, who re-arranged it as an instrumental for his band. The song has since been re-recorded and released two more times including for the double CD Ethiopiques 20: Live in Addis (2005).
The Either/Orchestra band recently held a prelude gig at Liliy Pad in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at an event dubbed “A secret concert with Teshome Mitiku, a great Ethiopian voice.” As the leader tells it, this was a show that has been a long time coming. “In 1969, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a young singer named Teshome Mitiku wrote a song called Yezemed Yebada and recorded it under the aegis of the legendary Amha Records,” Gershon said in an email explaining the connection between Either/Orchestra and the Ethiopian musician. “Three years later Teshome left Ethiopia for Sweden, where he developed a music career, fathered a little girl who became the Swedish pop star Emilia, and eventually moved to the U.S.”
Teshome Mitiku will perform Yezemed – and several other songs – with the Either/Orchestra at the 32nd Annual Chicago Jazz Festival. Gershon tells Tadias Magazine that Getatchew Mekurya will also make an appearance at the longest running of the city’s lake-front musical events.
If You Go: The 2010 Chicago Jazz Festival will take place from September 2nd to the 5th in Grant Park. Learn more.
Above:Arranged as a retrospective of the formative work of
Mulatu Astatke, the godfather of Ethio-jazz, a fusion of Ethio
music and—you guessed it—jazz, The Story Of Ethio Jazz is
20 tracks…outlining the development of the form over a 10
year period. Dominated by the vibraphone, Astatke’s signature
instrument, the pieces are short, modal and are short on
development, but heavy on mood. Read more.
Watch: Mulatu Astatke – Ethio Jazz Retrospective (Strut)
Video: Ace to Ace interview with Mulatu Astatke
Spotlight on Danny Mekonnen: Founder of Debo Band (Video)
New York (Tadias) – Ethiopian-American jazz saxophonist Danny Mekonnen, a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at Harvard University, founded Debo band in 2006. The band, which has been cultivating a small but enthusiastic following in the loft spaces, neighborhood bars, and church basements of Boston, explores the unique sounds that filled the dance floors of “Swinging Addis” – a period of prolific Ethiopian jazz recordings in the 1960s and 70s. Addis Ababa’s nightlife was buzzing with live Afro-pop, Swing, and Blues performances rivaling those in Paris or New York. The sounds of that era have been showcased on the Ethiopiques Buda CD series. The 60′s and 70′s also witnessed the rise of legendary stars such as Tilahun Gessesse, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Mulatu Astatke, and saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, among others – some of whom Danny credits as his source of inspiration. He pays tribute to Menelik Wossenachew, a member of the Haile Sellasie Theatre Orchestra, led by the famous Armenian composer Nerses Nalbandian. Debo began making appearances outside of Boston this year, including shows in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. We spoke with Danny prior to the band’s concert at L’Orange Bleue in New York City.
Photos from Chicago: Ethiopian Cultural Festival and Soccer Tournament
Chicago (Tadias) – The Week-long annual Ethiopian Soccer Tournament, which opened in Chicago on June 28, will conclude this weekend with a cultural festival and the final games to be held at Lane Tech Stadium.
Although we don’t have actual numbers, the crowd in Chicago seems smaller than the 2008 turnout in Washington D.C.; the festivities however are just as upbeat. Organizers are gearing up for their signature Ethiopia Day Celebration, a popular and colorful cultural display of music, dance and food. Last year’s event featured Ethiopian music legend, the late Tilahun Gessesse. The 2009 ceremonies honor another cultural icon and musician, Mulatu Astatke, among others.
As for the soccer competition: So far over 45 games have already been held involving 27 teams representing various cities from the U.S. and Canada. Four teams have advanced to the semifinals including San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle and the defending champions, Washington D.C.
The following images were captured by Nolawi Petros for Tadias Magazine.
2009 Ethiopian Soccer Tournament Underway in Chicago (Photos)
Above:For the first time in the event’s 26-year history, the
annual Ethiopian Soccer Tournament is being hosted by the
city of Chicago this year. The 2009 event opened on June 28.
Chicago (Tadias) – Ethiopians from across the U.S. are gathering in Chicago for the 2009 Soccer tournament.
The event, which also doubles as an annual cultural festival, celebrates its 26th anniversary this year. The Chicago festivities opened at Lane Tech Stadium on June 28th in the presence of this year’s guests of honor Ethiopian jazz musician Mulatu Astatke and others.
The annual event goes beyond sports entertainment, allowing families and friends in North America’s Ethiopian immigrant community to come together in celebration of both sports and their cultural heritage. The tournament weekend is a popular time for networking, alumni gatherings, small business catering, music performances, and reunion parties.
This is the first time the “Windy City” is hosting the event. Here are photos from the opening ceremonies. Stay tuned for more photos: by Nolawi Petros for Tadias.
Related from Tadias photo archives: 2008 D.C. Soccer Tournament Above:Ababa Tesafye attended the event as guest of honor. He celebrated his
birthday on July 4th. The announcer did not mention the beloved children’s television
entertainer’s age. People familiar with Ababa Tesfaye say he does not know the year
he was born. At the Ethiopians for Obama booth. We even spotted a vendor selling Obama Juice. At the international Ethiopian Women Association booth.
Chicago to Host 2009 Ethiopian Soccer Tournament and Cultural Festival
Above:Last year’s event was held at RFK stadium in
Washington D.C. (Photo/Tadias)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009
New York (Tadias) – For the first time in the event’s 26-year history, the annual Ethiopian Soccer Tournament will be hosted by the city of Chicago this year, organizers announced. The 2009 event will take place at Lane Tech Stadium from June 28th to July 4th.
The annual gathering goes beyond sports entertainment, allowing families and friends in North America’s Ethiopian immigrant community to come together in celebration of both sports and their cultural heritage. The tournament weekend is a popular time for networking, alumni gatherings, small business catering, music performances, and reunion parties.
Organizers says that fans this year will have a chance not only to revel in the celebratory atmosphere of the tournament, but also take delight in the national significance of the host city.
“This year’s celebration is special because the city of Chicago is the first Mid-Western city to host ESFNA’s annual event,” Mekonnen Demisiew, ESFNA’s newly elected President said in a statement. “Chicago is also the home of the great leader who has brought so much excitement and hope to the world, the 44th president of the United States of America.”
The breadth of events and services provide an economic boon to local businesses, and being selected as a host city for the annual event is both a privilege and a competitive endeavor.
“ESFNA’s Chicago-09 preparation is going very well. We are excited about the possibilities this great Mid-Western city has to offer our guests,” Mr. Demisiew said. “This year’s celebrations will indeed be memorable by virtue of the presence of our highly esteemed Guests of Honor, Ethiopian jazz musician Ato Mulatu Astatke and former national team player, coach and Olympic sprinter Ato Basha Hailu.”
Related: Hot Shots from the 2008 D.C. Soccer Tournament Above:Ababa Tesafye attended the event as guest of honor. He celebrated his
birthday on July 4th. The announcer did not mention the beloved children’s television
entertainer’s age. People familiar with Ababa Tesfaye say he does not know the year
he was born. At the Ethiopians for Obama booth. We even spotted a vendor selling Obama Juice. At the international Ethiopian Women Association booth.
Interview with Teodross “Teo” Avery, Ethiopian-American Musician Carving His Unique Niche in Hip-Hop Jazz
Ethiopian-American musician Teodross "Teo" Avery is creating his own niche in the American hip-hop jazz scene. (Courtesy photo)
Tadias Magazine
By Adey Tsega
Published: Friday, December 19, 2008
New York (TADIAS) – What does Teodross “Teo” Avery have in common with jazz giants Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, and Arturo Sandoval? They all have graced the stage of The Blue Note, one of New York’s legendary jazz clubs in the heart of Greenwich Village.
Avery, a talented Ethiopian-American musician is carving his own niche in hip-hop jazz, and all eyes were on him as he played his tenor saxophone with confidence and ease, seamlessly transitioning between his original work and pieces from Earth Wind & Fire, John Coltrane and Mos Def.
Avery has recorded and collaborated with other powerhouse musicians including: Aretha Franklin, Lauryn Hill, Shakira, Wu Tang Clan, and Amy Winehouse. Films such as Love Jones, Brown Sugar and Beauty Shop also carry songs he has either written or produced.
His own lyrics entitled New Day New Groove and My Generation capture the proactive, idealistic and determined energy of his generation.
Avery’s strong interest in music developed at an early age. He was born and raised in the Bay Area, California, from an Ethiopian mother and African American father. His parents encouraged his interest in music by exposing him to a wide variety of music. His mother fondly recalls the comments of a Bay Area piano store owner as perhaps the earliest testament of Avery’s destiny as a musician. Intervening on behalf of the then 4 year old, crying hysterically at his mother’s stern words not to touch any of the pianos at the store, the owner gave little Teo permission to play on any of the pianos for as long as he liked, telling his mother to encourage her son’s interest in music and that he may become a great musician some day.
Avery credits his father as the earliest and most significant supporter of his artistic aspirations. His father bought him his first guitar at the age of 5 and enrolled him in classical guitar lessons. After years of guitar lessons, Avery developed a strong interest in jazz and later settled on the saxophone as his instrument of choice. His father recalls that in his early teens, Avery often took his horn to Bay Area jazz concerts and joined the likes of Nat Adderley, Jimmy Smith and Art Blakey on stage.
Avery went on to win a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music at the age of 17 and later earned his Masters degree in Music from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education. His talent and versatility is demonstrated by the diversity of artists he has worked with including: Matchbox Twenty, Leela James, Talib Kweli, Ethiopian artists Abegaz Shiota and Henok Temesgen, Dee Dee Bridgewater and the late great Betty Carter, among many others.
I had a chance to chat with Teo about his music and his upcoming show in Washington D.C. at the Blues Alley.
Teodross “Teo” Avery. (Courtesy photo)
TADIAS: How would you describe your musical style?
Teodross: My style of hip-hop jazz is instrumental… hip-hop beats with jazzy horns on top. I also mix jazz with house music, funk and Brazilian music. Sometimes I feature rappers, but most times I feature the instruments.
TADIAS: Tell us about your latest album. Why is it titled “Bridging the Gap”?
Teodross: Bridging The Gap is a concept that I came up with after witnessing the huge gap between jazz and hip-hop. There’s a group of people that like jazz but often are ignored. They are the same jazz listeners that listen to Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Common, and Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Bridging The Gap represents that link.
TADIAS: You give a tribute to John Coltrane at your shows. How has he influenced your music?
Teodross: Well, John Coltrane single-handedly influenced me to become a jazz musician. His music is full of love and emotion, and it’s always challenging. When I listen to John Coltrane, I hear a love for God and Coltrane’s desire to become a better person. I’ve always been a person that likes challenges and I’ve always wanted to go beneath the surface.
TADIAS: What is the most rewarding aspect of your life as an artist?
Teodross: The most rewarding time is when I see people connect to a song that I wrote. See, people don’t know the struggle that artists have to overcome before they’re inspired to write songs. They hear the final product. Any artist that has struggled in life to be here today and to tell their story through their instrument is lying if they say that they don’t appreciate fans that love their art. The fans make it all worth it!
Teodross “Teo” Avery. (Courtesy photo)
TADIAS: Any plans to work with Ethiopian artists?
Teodross: I have already worked with Ethiopian artists. I played with Abegaz Shiota and Henok Temesgen. They’re good friends of mine. We attended The Berklee College of Music together. Mulatu Astatke has expressed some interest in working together. I also played a concert in Oakland with Mahmoud Ahmed. Wow! He gave a great show.
Music from the “horn of Africa” will be among the sounds heard at the Jazz & Rib Fest next weekend.
The Either/Orchestra, a 10-piece jazz band from Cambridge, Mass., which last performed in Columbus in 1991, will return with four musicians originally from Ethiopia.
The band’s guests will be Mulatu Astatke (vibes, keyboards), Setegn Atanaw (masinko, a one-string violin), Minale Dagnew (krar, a five-string lyre) and Hana Shenkute (vocals). The band will play on the Bicentennial Park Stage at 8:30 p.m. Friday.
Above Left:The Either/Orchestra with leader Russ Gershon at center, in striped shirt.
(Photo:Eric Antoniou).Middle:Mulatu Astatke.Right: David Sanborn
“Most people hearing Ethiopian music blindfolded, so to speak, think that it’s some sort of combination between African and Arabic music,” said Russ Gershon, the orchestra’s saxophonist and leader, in a recent interview.
“When you think of Ethiopian music and have the Either/Orchestra play it, you have the African rhythms, the (Amharic-language) singing, jazzy horn solos and Latin grooves,” Gershon said.
“Both Latin and jazz music come from Africa to begin with. So American musicians, we’re heirs to African music. But on the other hand, Ethiopians have been very strongly influenced by American music, so it really mixes together very well.” Read More.
The term ‘world music’ suggests sounds that are esoteric and unfamiliar — neither of which applies to Ethiopiques, one of the hippest acts of the summer of 08 that recently played both London’s high-tone Barbican theater and the rather more déclassé Glastonbury Festival. And even though the music is certainly not from round these parts, its hooks and grooves are ones any veteran soul-boy or jazzer can relate to: funky brass, swirling organ, growling sax, rippling congas, ecstatic vocals — this is not the sound of a national culture struggling to make itself heard over the global noise of pop. Rather, these are artists who 40 years ago itched to be part of it, who dressed like doo-wop boys, played funk, jazz and RnB in Ethiopia’s hotel bars and nightclubs and were stars of a scene that, for a while, was known as “Swinging Addis.”
Onstage, the natty-tailored, balding guy on vibes is jazz arranger Mulatu Astatqé, who once played with Duke Ellington. The priest-like one in the robes is Mahmoud Ahmed, who became Ethiopia’s most popular singer, and was once the spitting image of the young Sam Cooke. Alèmayèhu Eshèté still has the yelp (if not quite the glorious pompadour) of his James Brown days. And, draped in his colorful military cape and now somewhat mangey, lion’s mane crown, the shamanic Gétatchèw Mèkurya would catch the eye in any age, a Sun Ra for the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Above:Singers Mahmoud Ahmed, Tlahoun Gessesse, Tefera Kassa, Essatu Tessemma,
and Tezera Hayle-Michael were stars of Ethiopia’s club scene.
The Swinging Sixties:The Police Band strut their stuff in 1965/6.
Performing together for the very first time, these four artists, backed by the Boston-based Either/Orchestra, are playing a series of gigs this summer under the banner of Ethiopiques, the title of a growing catalogue of recordings from the Swinging Addis days unearthed by Francis Falceto, a French promoter of avant-garde and world music for whom this music has been a passion since he first heard Ahmed’s record Erh Mhla Mhla played at a party in 1984. “I sent tapes of it to all my radio and DJ friends and they all replied ‘What is that? Where is it from?’ Nobody knew it, not even those specializing in African music.” Starting at Paris’s only Ethiopian restaurant, Falceto set out to find Ahmed and to rescue as many recordings of the music he could lay hands on. Along the way he has come to understand the remarkable story of its creation.
Above Left:Supremely Talented – The style and sound of singer Feqerte Dessalegn
(1966/67). Photographs: Coll.Ethiopiques, from the book Abyssinie Swing — A Pictorial
History of Modern Ethiopian Music by Francis Falceto.Right:Wowing the Crowd – Singer
Mahmoud Ahmed in his soul-man days.
Falceto’s first trip to Ethiopia in 1985 was not encouraging. Eleven years of military dictatorship under Colonel Mengistu and a dusk-to-dawn curfew had all but extinguished Addis Ababa’s nightlife. The few hotels in the capital offering live entertainment were mostly the haunt of business and diplomatic flotsam and hookers, while the music was desultory generic pop, played on cheap synthesizers. “It took several trips and several more years before I understood what had happened,” says Falceto. “These big bands were dead. They just didn’t exist any more.” Incredibly, the vibrancy of Addis’s musical life in the 60′s and 70′s owed its all to the municipal and military bands that were sponsored by the emperor Haile Selassie until his overthrow in 1974. Read More.
—-
Photo from Tadias archives: Hot Shots from Seattle – Ethiopian-born Yaddi Bojia, member of the Crucialites reggae band, performing at the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle, Washington.
Seattle Ethiopians to mark millennium with 3-day event For local Ethiopians, new year brings hope for peace (The Seattle Post via MSNBC)
Other large U.S. cities also will mark the millennium. Seattle’s will last from Friday through Sunday at Warren G. Magnuson Park, where thousands are expected to participate in fireworks, a soccer tournament, dancing and a symposium of scholars. Read More
San Francisco: FREE CONCERT – Ethiopian millennium, Welcome 2000, Welcome peace
A special concert to wish for peace among Christians, Jews, and Muslims will be presented
on Saturday, September 15, 2007, 7:30 pm, at Temple United Methodist Church, located at 65 Beverly Street in San Francisco. This is near San Francisco State at the intersection of Junipero Serra and 19th Avenue. It’s on the Muni M-line and the 28. Seating is limited so call 415- 586-1444 to reserve.
Boston: The Either/Orchestra with Mulatu Astatke, Hana Shenkute, Setegn & Minale
Saturday, September 29, 8:00 PM
Somerville Theatre
55 Davis Square
Somerville, 02145
Reserved seating
$28.00 (includes Somerville Theatre $1.00 restoration fee)
Over the past decade, the Either/Orchestra has been creating a unique sound that blends the exotic and melodic music of Ethiopia with the orchestra’s trumpets, trombone, saxophones, keyboards, bass, drums and Latin percussion. For this rare concert, the ten-piece band will be joined by very special guests Mulatu Astatke, Ethiopia’s most famous instrumentalist and composer of the haunting music featured in the Bill Murray and Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers; renowned singer Hana Shenkute; Setegn Atanaw on masinko (Ethiopia’s signature one-string violin) and Minale Dagnew on krar (a five-string Ethiopian lyre). Learn More.
Arts on Foot 2007 Outdoor Street Festival
Saturday, September 15
Rain or Shine
11:00am – 5:00pm
FREE
8th and F Streets, NW
Metro: Gallery Pl-Chinatown
Marking its 15th anniversary, Arts on Foot is a one-day, multimedia Festival that kicks off the fall arts season in Downtown DC’s Penn Quarter. Incorporating visual art, music, theatre, dance, film, and creative cuisine, it’s an interactive celebration the whole family will enjoy. With a lively outdoor street festival as its centerpiece, Arts on Foot also invites you to explore the neighborhood’s museums, theaters, galleries, cultural organizations, and shops. From traditional classics to cutting edge, Arts on Foot offers something for the arts and food lover in everyone! Read More.
Atlanta: Above: Chachi (www.chachi.info.) The Atlanta Ethiopian Millennium Festival.
Activities include music (reggae and African), dance, traditional Ethiopian New Year’s performances, free coffee in traditional tents, and an African market.
September 8, 2007
$10
Woodruff Park
Peachtree Street at Auburn Avenue
Atlanta GA 30303
Phone: 410-375-9931
Website: www.ema2000.com
****************************** How to Advertise
To learn about advertising, Click Here.
******************************
Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose) Ethiopian Millennium Celebration in the Bay Area
“This year’s New Year’s celebration, hosted jointly by the San Jose group and the Ethiopian Community and Cultural Center of Oakland, aims to bring together families and friends who live miles apart in the Bay Area.” – Oakland Tribune
At San Jose City Hall, the green, yellow and red Ethiopian flag will fly alongside the American flag Sept. 7 through 14, proclaimed Ethiopia Week last year in San Jose.
In Oakland, Sept. 11 was proclaimed Ethiopia Day two years ago.
Los Angeles Above:Little Ethiopia in Los Angeles, located on Fairfax Avenue between Olympic and Pico Boulevards. is the first neighbourhood in the U.S. to be named after Ethiopia. Ethiopian Millennium Celebration in Los Angeles
September 15-16th
FREE
Rancho La Cienega Sports Complex
5001 Rodeo Road (LaBrea & Rodeo)
Website: www.ethioy2kla.org
Washington DC Above:Mahmoud Ahmed, winner of the BBC Radio Awards for World Music from Africa, and Neway Debebe, Ethiopian pop favorite, will team up at the DC Armory on September 8, 2007, for the Ethiopian Millennium performance. Organizers have dubbed the event: Once In a Thousand Year. Once In a Thousand Year
September 8, 2007
DC Armory
Tickets: Ticketmaster.com
Millennium Ethiopia Art Exhibition
Opening Reception
September 10, 2007
Howard University
Blackburn Art Gallery
Starting 6:00PM
Exhibition will remain open until October 10, 2007 Curated and Coordinated by Roberta McLeod &Mekbib Gebertsadik
Webiste: Millennium Ethiopia Art Exhibition
Today in New York City The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with World Music Institute presents a Digital Premiere featuring Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke. According to the museum the concert was recorded at the MET on September 9, 2016. The JazzTimes called it “a spirited and entrancing set that spanned his career and spotlighted his gift for shifting fluidly between intricate, sinuous melodies and airy, atmospheric grooves.” (MET)
