http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTRmpJ_EpJE

Dub Colossus member Samuel Yirga “plays one night a week in Addis’s only jazz club/coffee bar, where the way he mixes Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock with Ethiojazz has won him a cult following.” He says:

I take traditional music and turn it around, and people in Ethiopia are starting to listen to the way it swings now. Our musical culture is under attack from inside and out, it’s all rock bands, hip-hop groups and pop singers, and nobody can afford to run a big band.

Via Real World Records.

Further Reading

On the pitch

This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.