If you go out around music bars and venues in Addis Ababa, you will enjoy a very characteristic scene, but if you want to get an idea of the different sounds from the country, you will get a very narrow view of it; in some places some Amhara or Gurage music may be found but... what about the rest?
“It was visionary, the awakening of a new era”, says Amha Eshete, the Ethiopian musical producer in the days of Swingin’Addis, the golden age. Recordings made between the 50s and the 80s, the Ethiopian music publications that crossed borders; while the contemporary musical scene of Addis Ababa remains practically unknown to the world. Music in Addis Ababa expresses everyday life and the processes of transformation in the city.
If you go out around music bars and venues in Addis Ababa, you will enjoy a very characteristic scene, but if you want to get an idea of the different sounds from the country, you will get a very narrow view of it; in some places some Amhara or Gurage music may be found but... what about the rest?
