Sunday, August 23, 2015

Mahmoud Ahmed's Journey From Shoe-Shine boy to An International Superstar

In concert, his [Mahmoud's] enigmatic multi-octave voice seizes on a note, brief or sustained, and makes its pitch tremble as it its urgency could barely be containedThe New York Times

MAHMOUD Ahmed has a rich, deep voice that oozes liquid chocolate down a phone line crackling with static; what a pity I can't understand a word he is saying.Sydney morning herald

75 years ago a baby named Mahmoud Ahmed brought to this world by an Ethiopian working class parents at a place locally known as Mercato in the center of Addis Ababa. Neither his family nor himself had imagined that this little boy one-day would be an internationally acclaimed artist. Mahmoud coming from Ethiopia's well known entrepreneurial and hard-working Gurage ethnic group, his first profession like many of his fellow mates, was shining shoes on the streets of Addis. He tried a series of other menial jobs before he ended up as handy-man at the Arizona Club which was back then an after-work hangout place for Emperor Haile Selassie I's Imperial Body Guard Band. On a fateful night, one of the singers didn't show-up and Mahmoud

Monday, August 17, 2015

Veteran & Young Ethiopian Artists Rock Stockholm



Internationally acclaimed Ethiopian singers Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshete as well as Ethiocolor, an Addis Ababa based folklore group, took the grand stage at Stockholm Culture Festival on August 13, in an evening curated by Selam — a cultural organization based in Sweden. 
Thousands of music fans from Ethiopia and other countries were first entertained by the eleven-strong Ethiocolor, which fuses music and dances using traditional instruments that are arranged in a modern touch. The musicians and dancers who comprise three different generations, are recognized for their vibrant live shows with rhythmic dances of various ethnic groups of Ethiopia.