THE CANCER OF ETHIOPIAN MUSIC: THE SYNTHESIZER

Ha’aretz, Israel
May 15 2006

At the Sheraton Hotel bookshop in Addis Ababa – an infuriatingly
luxurious building, which indifferently overlooks an ocean of shanties
and mud houses spread out at its feet – one’s eye is caught by the
book “Abyssinia Swing.” The book, written by French music producer
and scholar Francis Falceto, documents the development of Ethiopian
music from the late 19th century, through the initiative of Emperor
Haile Selassie in the 1920s to bring an orchestra of Armenian orphans
from Jerusalem to Addis Ababa, and up to the golden age of the 1960s,
which produced sophisticated and groovy music such as that of Mulatu
Astatke, featured in Jim Jarmusch’s film “Broken Flowers.”

The books ends in the mid-seventies, and specifically declares its
unwillingness to deal with present-day Ethiopian music. The reason for
that is brought in one clear-cut sentence: “In the year 2000 nothing
remains of the golden age of Ethiopian music, except for recordings
and photos.”

Who is to blame for the creative collapse of Ethiopian music? The
Communist regime and the synthesizer. The Communist government, which
carried out a military coup in the mid-seventies, marked American
soul music, which more than anything else had fueled the musical
blossoming in Addis Ababa, as the music of the enemy, persecuted
the musicians who continued to remain loyal to it, and directed the
entire preoccupation with music to military-patriotic channels. The
synthesizer, which captured the market in the 1990s, turned the
wind instruments, the source of the vitality of modern Ethiopian
music, into superfluous objects, and enabled untrained musicians,
who were often untalented as well, to issue discs at one-tenth the
price demanded previously. Abate Barihon calls the synthesizer “the
cancer of Ethiopian music,” thus expressing the feelings of many. “At
a certain point, a few years before I left Addis, the entire city
suddenly became filled with the cancers,” he says.

A visit to the nightclubs in Addis Ababa makes it clear that the
synthesizer continues to rule unchallenged. It is placed in the center
of every stage and fires its programmed synthetic drums into the
air of the club. All the other instruments are optional: Who needs
a bass or a saxophone or a guitar when the synthesizer can imitate
their sound and avoid the need to pay another player?

A visit to the nightclubs therefore begins with reservations about
the rule of the computerized keys, which flatten the music. But
after a few minutes in the first club, Select Pub, something strange
happens. Suddenly it turns out that a lot of interesting things are
actually happening here. The most obvious is the insane turnover of
singers on the improvised stage, which has nothing separating it from
the small dance floor. Instead of the singer being the fixed item and
the many instruments accompanying him supplying variety and interest,
the synthesizer is the fixed item and the many singers who surround
it provide the variety.

Two boys of about 18 are performing a song that sounds like reggae,
but which is still clearly rooted in Ethiopian scales. When it is
finished, they get off the stage, and immediately a man of about 40,
plump and balding, enters from the door next to the bar, and sings
in a style reminiscent of unctuous R & B songs. The plump man is
then replaced by a flirty female singer in 15-cm heels, singing in a
thin, screechy voice, reminiscent of the singers in Indian films and,
finally, a singer in an elegant beige suit gets onstage. The moment he
begins to sing, the gang at the back of the nightclub, who had looked
totally bored, jumps to its feet and begins to dance enthusiastically.

“It’s a Sudanese song, and this group comes from Sudan. That’s why
they’re so excited,” explains a 31-year-old real estate agent, who
now lives in Washington and is visiting her parents in Addis. Why
does she like the Select Pub? “Because when I come here, the last
thing I want to do is to go to a nightclub where most of the people
are Westerners, as happens in the Sheraton, for example.” The
singers, she says, are not professionals, but not total amateurs,
either. Some of them make a living from singing in the club and hope
to be discovered and to develop a successful career, and others have
ordinary jobs and moonlight in the club. The songs they sing are
“hits that every Ethiopian is familiar with. Songs of Mahmoud Ahmed,
and other great singers.”

When the plump, bald man returns to the stage, the young Sudanese
return to nap in their armchairs, and when he leaves, the lighting
gets stronger and two female dancers get onstage, dressed in gilt
tank tops and short-shorts. It would be an understatement to describe
their dance as very energetic pelvic movements. Afterwards the unending
parade of male and female singers returns.

Two days later, at the Mandigo club, Yitzhak Yedid of the Ras Deshen
ensemble is full of admiration at the level of the singers. “All of
them, without exception, sing very precisely,” he says. “But they
are not only precise, they are also very creative, and each of them
has his own style. I think that I have never seen so many outstanding
singers in one room.” (B.S.)

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress