Music

While I've certainly had trouble keeping up on the latest in music while over here I have begun more creative writing projects with regards to music. I will certainly link to a piece I'll be doing for Streethawk on the lack of certain genres in Ethiopia, which will involve the inputs of a local "English club" who I've commandeered into helping me. A benefit of being foreign in Ethiopia is that people are even more inclined to want to talk to you about anything than a tiny indie band desperate for publicity. More on that later though.

For now I would like to talk about a traditional Ethiopian folk band that I saw. They didn't have a band name as such a thing seems unusual only for bands of wide popularity. In fact they were more of a house band, but what is particularly interesting is the style of music, which may have had a specific Ethiopian word for the genre, but I can only remember that it was called Habesha music, which refers to the local culture in the region I'm in.

The music consisted of a very talented 10 year old drummer banging out African rhythms that went completely overlooked by the locals who were more interested in following the antics of the vocalists. There was usually two vocalists a man and a woman, but sometimes just one of them would sing. What makes this music interesting is in how it is sung. The singer picks a person in the audience and improvisationally makes fun of them for a verse or two and then moves on to a new person, sometimes they pull the person they're making fun of up to dance. At this point occasionally you push a bill into their forehead to show your appreciation, I thought this method of payment weird, but went with it. Now to be honest I didn't find the translations of what had been said particularly funny most of the time, but it's entirely possible that there was a lot of punnish wordplay that was lost in the translation. The locals thought it was pretty funny most of the time though. There was usually a man playing a unique instrument that was like a violin with one thick string, I'm not sure of the name of it. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it because even though the instrument was unusual the people who were playing it weren't particularly good at it. I stayed for a couple hours and it was nonstop while I was there, but I had tired of it by then. Before leaving I tipped the little boy who was holding it all together for them.

Still it was the best Ethiopian music I'd heard since arriving as it was something other than Ethiopian pop which I have quickly tired of.