Long before he was the charismatic frontman of the French jazz-rock band Ukandanz, Asnaké Gebreyes was an in-demand singer in the night- clubs of his native Addis Ababa. He cut his teeth in the city’s burgeoning music scene when he was still a teenager, performing with the Ethiopian Police Orchestra, a government-run talent incubator that also launched the careers of “First Lady of Ethiopian pop” Bizunesh Bekele and “the Abyssinian Elvis,” Alèmayèhu Eshèté. By the ’80s, Gebreyes was a star in his own right, and he had a local hit with the 1988 Ethio-jazz album Ahadu, which was hand-dubbed on cassette and hawked out of Addis Ababa’s Walia Music Shop.
Author: exy
Published at: 2025-04-21 21:50:36
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