• by IPS Correspondents (addis abeba)
• Tuesday, December 20, 1994
• Inter Press Service

ADDIS ABEBA, Dic 20 (IPS) - For anyone with an interest in African traditional music, there is no better starting point than any Ethiopian coffee bar or 'bunna bet'.

It is in these bars where Ethiopian soloists break new ground and show off their musical minds.

Across time, from the years of monarchial rule through the Marxist military regime to the current transitional period, music has been the only medium here that afforded plenty of freedom of expression.

Until four years ago there was no free press in Ethiopia, and the mass media was controlled by the state. Singers, or 'azmari's', managed to express their political consciousness though their songs and today, azmari's still touch upon burning national issues.

Addisu Debeba, 28, a famous azmari and masterful storyteller, sings a song critizising his country's newly adopted constitution which allows any ethnic group to secede and form an independent country.

"This is a beautiful land, a land of milk and honey/ It makes me cry to see it dismembered with ethnic politics based on the right to secede."

In a staccato, he continues: "Ethnic-based politics take us nowhere/ Don't people have eyes to see and ears to hear?/ Why let this ancient land go to pieces?"

Accompanied by a 'masinko' instrument that resembles a flute, or a 'krar', a six-string lyre, his songs are punctuated with rowdy applause from the ululating audience.

In an effort to explain the great demand for azmari's in the capital's 20,000 bars, civil servant Ketema Feyissa says she loves the love songs and political songs that "takes loneliness from the people's mind and bring optimism."

"I don't go to the cinema because they are poorly ventilated," she adds, "and I find Ethiopian television programmes boring and full of government propaganda."

In feudal Ethiopia, and even during the early years of the military regime which overthrew the monarchy in 1974, azmari's were looked down upon by many as the "scum of society."

"They were seen as lazy people who did nothing worthwhile besides sleeping all day and visiting bars at night," recalls 70- year-old Fekru Abebe, a retired farmer in Addis Abeba. (MORE)

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© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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