Music
Alemayehu Eshete: the “Ethiopian Elvis” of Addis Ababa’s golden age
Alemayehu Eshete was one of the stars of Addis Ababa's musical golden age in the 1960s and 1970s.…
Éthiopiques
Music
From shoeshine boy to Ethiopian legend: Mahmoud Ahmed and Erè Mèla Mèla
Mahmoud Ahmed, born in Addis Ababa's Mercato district in 1941, worked as a shoeshiner and a handyman at…
Arts + Culture
The records Ethiopia almost lost: how the Éthiopiques series brought “Swinging Addis” to the world
In 1997, the Paris label Buda Musique, with producer Francis Falceto, began the Éthiopiques series, reissuing Ethiopian popular…
Arts + Culture
Mulatu Astatke mixed Ethiopian scales with jazz and Latin grooves. Jim Jarmusch put Ethio-jazz in Hollywood
Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz, blended Ethiopian modes with jazz and Latin rhythms in the 1960s and…