Saturday, July 14, 2012

Reggae: A Love Story

Ethiopia’s passionate love affair with reggae can be traced to the 1960s. Reggae’s Rastafarian themes glorified Ethiopia as the divinely-promised Zion, and her Emperor Haile Selassie (Birth name Ras Tafari Mekkonen) as God incarnate. It’s really easy to fall in love with someone who has such a high opinion of you. Plus, the music wasn’t half bad. And so the courtship began.

Flash-forward to July 7, 2012 and the love affair with reggae, or at least its modern dance hall-influenced equivalent, has only intensified. This is the day I join several thousand Ethiopians at the nearby Laphto Mall for the debut concert of Jah Lude, the country’s newest reggae star. Thanks to ABC Trading for hosting this wonderful concert. Also, thanks to ABC Trading for letting the audience know that the concert was hosted by ABC Trading some fifteen times. I kept nearly forgetting.



My friends and I wanted to take a jump-in-the fire approach in terms of getting acclimated to Ethiopian culture, and I can’t think of a more effective means of doing so. To our satisfaction, the show was pretty incredible. The sound system was decent and, except for all of the thieves, the audience was really good. If I could ask one important thing of concert organizers, it would be to eliminate the half hour DJ sets between each act. That way, the star attraction can go on before well past midnight. Oh, and also cut the opener. She was terrible. Just because she’s a cast member on Big Brother Africa doesn’t mean she can sing. Actually, as a rule of thumb, reality stars are usually pretty awful singers. Their only talents are finding ways to get paid to drink copious amounts of alcohol and getting into staged fights.
                                                                                                                              
I wish I could have stayed for all of Jah Lude, but, as I mentioned, it was just too darn late by the time he went on. I got my money’s worth, as there were four other acts, plus the aforementioned myriad DJs. The music was a lot different from the Ethiopian jazz and traditonal styles that I'm used to. Older Ethiopian music is my life blood, but it was a breath of fresh air to hear sounds that defied the stoic, beautifuly sad images of Ethiopian culture in general. For an example of the cult of mystery that surrounds traditional Ethiopian art, follow this link to hear a song by recently deceased national treasure Tilahun Gesesse.

Apart from Jah Lude, highlights of the evening were Dawit Melesse (a more traditional sax-loving Ethiopian Pop star) and Haile Roots (A reggae artist, if his name didn’t betray that fact already). Here's a song from Haile, enjoy!

P34cE & L0v3

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