Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
All Music Guide:
In Ethiopia the word is "eskeusta," which roughly translated means ecstasy; more specifically, it is a shaking sensation that begins at one's shoulders, quivering down the spine and into the legs and feet. Of all the great male vocalists that Ethiopia has produced (and there have been quite a few), none is able to create eskeusta better than Mahmoud Ahmed.
For over 40 years Mahmoud Ahmed has deftly combined the traditional Amharic music of Ethiopia (essentially a five-note scale that features jazz-style singing offset by complex circular rhythm patterns that give the music a distinct Indian feel) with pop and jazz, yielding some of the most adventurous, passionate, ear-opening, downright surrealistic sounds this side of the deepest, darkest dub or the most out-there free jazz. In fact, until you've heard Ahmed's sweeping multi-octave voice in full workout, words hardly do it justice. As with the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, he simply has to be heard to be believed and appreciated.
Ahmed has been a star in Ethiopia almost since the day he began recording. His swooping vocals, complemented by the freewheeling jazziness of the Ibex Band (with whom he recorded his masterpiece, Ere Mela Mela), are very different from what normally is lumped into the broad expression Afro-pop. The rhythms are repetitive and intense, not too dissimilar from, say, Fela, just a little less hard. But it's Ahmed's voice -- swirling high notes that sound as if they're chasing one another, impeccable tone and phrasing -- that is the distinguishing element. By singing in this style Ahmed has attempted to fuse the past and present. He's not an elitist when it comes to singing older Ethiopian music, but rather he hears the similarities in Ethiopian pop that have thrived over time and is keen to bring them together.
As the Western critical attention to Afro-pop centered on the music of sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopian artists like Ahmed and Hirut Bekele, Ali Birra, and Alemayehu Eshete were less likely to receive coverage in the music press. Recently, younger performers such as Aster Aweke (who emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-'80s) and Netsanet Mellesse have received more ink, thus opening the doors for those inclined to explore the music that influenced them. And for those so inclined that means becoming familiar with brilliant, demanding, but unknown artists such as Mahmoud Ahmed. He has been featured consistently in the award-winning Ethiopiques series of compilation recordings from Buda Musique, and has four separate installments -- Vols. 6, 7 (his seminal Erè Mèla Mèla), 19, and 26 -- devoted exclusively to his catalog of works as well as his singles that appear intermittently on other volumes. Ethiopiques, Vol. 26 features Ahmed fronting Ethiopia's Imperial Bodyguard Band between 1972 and 1974 (though he was no longer a member of that band); it includes all the sides he recorded with them in chronological order.
Wikipedia:
Mahmoud Ahmed (born May 8, 1941) (Amharic: መሀሙድ አህመድ) is an Ethiopian singer of Gurage ancestry. He gained great popularity in Ethiopia in the 1970s and among the Ethiopian diaspora in the 1980s before rising to international fame with African music fans in Europe and the Americas. He remains one of the most well-known Ethiopian music artists in the world.
Biography
Born in Addis Ababa's Mercato district, Ahmed was enthralled with the music he heard on Ethiopian radio from in early age. Having done poorly at school, he shined shoes before becoming a handyman at the Arizona Club, which was the after hours hangout of Emperor Haile Sellassie's Imperial Body Guard Band. One night in 1962 when the band's singer didn't show up, Ahmed asked to sing a few songs. He soon became part of the band's regular lineup, where he remained until 1974.
After cutting his first single with Venus Band "Nafqot New Yegodagn"/"Yasdestal" in 1971, Ahmed continued to record with several bands for the Amha and Kaifa record labels throughout the 1970s. The overthrow of Emperor Sellassie and the suspension of musical nightlife under the military government created shifts in the Ethiopian music industry—the Imperial Body Guard Band were no more, and Ahmed continued to make hit records and cassettes with many musicians who remained in the country, including the Dahlack Band, the Ibex Band and the Idan Raichel Project. He also began to release solo cassettes, accompanying himself on the krar, guitar or mandolin.
By 1978, censorship laws prevented Ahmed from releasing his music on vinyl and so he switched to releasing cassettes . In the 1980s Ahmed operated his own music store in Addis Ababa's Piazza district while continuing his singing career. With many Ethiopian refugees living abroad, Ahmed became one of the first modern Ethiopian music makers to perform in the United States on a 1980-81 tour with the Wallias Band, Gétatchew Kassa, and Webeshed Fisseha. Ahmed soon began releasing records with the Roha Band and became popular in diaspora communities.
In 1986, Ahmed's music reached a larger western audience when the Belgian label Crammed Discs released the collection Ere Mela Mela drawn from two Kaifa LPs Ahmed had recorded in Addis with the Ibex Band a decade earlier. Ethiopia was making headlines in the west because of political repression and famine, and the contrasting tone of Ahmed's first international release received much acclaim in the burgeoning world music community. Ahmed gained even greater international popularity in the late 1990s after Buda Musique launched the Ethiopiques series on compact disc. This led to new recordings and tours in Europe and the United States with Boston's Either/Orchestra and Badume's Band.
In 2007, Ahmed won a BBC World Music Award.
