Although Ethiopian culture and music have ancient roots (not to mention a tradition of Coptic liturgical music that dates back to the 4th century A.D.), the story of Ethiopian pop music doesn't begin until the 1930s, when the Emperor Haile Selassie introduced the first Western-style military brass bands. By the later half of the '40s—after the disruptions of the Italian occupation (1935–'41) and World War II—these bands had developed into full orchestras, playing American-inspired swing arrangements with Amharic lyrics and a distinctly Ethiopian modality.
But it wasn't until the late 1960s, toward the end of Selassie's long reign, that Ethiopian popular music—or "modern music," as it was called—really began to take off. The country was opening itself up to the swinging '60s, and a musical explosion fuelled by rapid urbanization and a short-lived economic prosperity was just beginning. Young singers and musicians were influenced by imported jazz, pop, R&B and soul music from the U.S. Artists like Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Esheteand and Mulatu Astatke combined these cool new imports with traditional Ethiopian sounds, while groups like the Wallias Band, the Roha Band and the Ethio Stars plugged in to newfangled Western instruments. The result was, quite literally, electric. Even institutional brass bands such as the Imperial Bodyguard Band, the Army Band and the Police Band got into the act (often recording some of the hottest sides of the era).
Unfortunately, this golden age didn't last. After Selassie was deposed in a military coup in 1974, a provisional administrative council of soldiers, known as the Derg ("committee") installed themselves as the governing junta. The Derg years were brutal and austere, and the dictatorship closed down the nightclubs and imposed censors on a thriving recording industry. The party was over.
But exiled musicians such as Aster Aweke, who left for the U.S. in 1979, continued to record contemporary Ethiopian pop abroad, while local stars such as Neway Debebe played cat-and-mouse with the censors.
When the Derg dictatorship finally collapsed in 1991, the lid again came off Ethiopian musical creativity. New pop stars such as Hebiste Tiruneh and Solom Tekalegn have emerged alongside new bands like the Abyssinia Band and the Axunite Band. One up-and-coming singer, Gigi Shibabaw, followed Aster Aweke's footsteps to the United States, where she teamed up with superproducer Bill Laswell to produce two acclaimed albums.
In an unlikely twist of fate, the '90s also bore witness to the discovery of a treasure trove of pre-Derg master recordings in a warehouse in Greece. These recordings—the entire catalog of the Ahma record label—were repackaged and released in the West as the now-legendary Ethiopiques series on the Buda Musique label. These massively influential discs have introduced many Westerners to the golden age of Ethiopian pop for the first time and helped revive the careers of old lions such as Mulatu Astatke and Mahmoud Ahmed.
In the new millennium, Ethiopian pop continues to evolve and garner wider international attention, attracting Western artists as diverse as the avant-jazz ensemble Either/Orchestra to Jamaican sax virtuoso Cedric Brooks. In fact, the county still exerts a very real pull for Jamaican musicians, as exemplified by 2005's Africa Unite festival, which drew many members of Bob Marley's family (three of whom performed) as well as Quincy Jones, Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and Angelique Kidjo. The event helped put Ethiopia back on the world's musical map. Tom Pryor
