Mahmoud Ahmed: A Farewell, Then One Last Album<\/h2>\n
Mahmoud Ahmed said goodbye to the stage with a farewell concert at Millennium Hall in Addis Ababa on January 11, 2025. He was not quite finished. On August 26, 2026, he presented Le Tarik (\u1208\u1273\u122a\u12ad), a 13 song album, at the Sheraton Addis. He called it his 26th and final album.<\/p>\n
His career began with the Imperial Bodyguard Band in the early 1960s. It took him from Amha Records singles to the \u00c9thiopiques reissues that made him famous in Europe. Our Mahmoud Ahmed discography<\/a> follows every step, from his first single in 1971 to Le Tarik.<\/p>\n Aster Aweke cut her first singles for Kaifa Records in 1977 and moved to the United States in 1981. Her albums Aster (1989) and Kabu (1991) made her famous far beyond Ethiopia.<\/p>\n She came home in 1997 and started her own label, Kabu Records. The albums kept coming: Hagere, Sikuar, Fikir, Checheho, Ewedihalehu and Chewa. On July 7, 2026, she released Gela Gela, which Apple Music lists as Gela Gela: Aster’s Ballads #2. You can find all of them in our Aster Aweke discography<\/a>.<\/p>\n No golden age story has a stranger middle chapter than this one. Hailu Mergia taught himself the accordion as a boy and became the organ player of the Walias Band, the house band of the Hilton Addis Ababa. In 1977 the band made Tche Belew, one of the very few instrumental albums of that era.<\/p>\n During a tour of the United States in 1981, Hailu and several bandmates decided to stay. In 1985 he recorded a cassette alone in a small studio, Hailu Mergia and His Classical Instrument. He stopped performing in 1991 and opened a restaurant. From 1998 he drove a taxi, mostly around Dulles Airport outside Washington.<\/p>\n He never stopped playing. “After I drop my customer, I grab my keyboard from the trunk and sit in the car and practice,” he once said.<\/p>\n Then a record collector found his tape. Brian Shimkovitz of the label Awesome Tapes From Africa came across the cassette and reissued it in 2013. In 2016 the label brought back Wede Harer Guzo, his 1978 album with the Dahlak Band. Its song Anchin Kfu Ayinkash has since passed 12 million streams.<\/p>\n Hailu went back on the road and made new music. Lala Belu came out in 2018, his first new record in more than thirty years, and Yene Mircha followed in 2020. He played the Perth Festival in Australia in February 2025 and was on the bill at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon, in July 2026. The full story of his old band is in our history of the Walias Band<\/a>.<\/p>\n Girma Beyene recorded only four songs as a singer in the 1970s, but his hands are all over the decade. As a pianist and arranger he worked on more than 60 songs. Many were for Alemayehu Eshete, including Addis Ababa Bete. He later joined the Walias Band.<\/p>\n When the band stayed in the United States in 1981, so did Girma. He moved into business in Los Angeles and stayed away from music for about three decades. In 2015 he joined Akal\u00e9 Wub\u00e9, a band from Paris. Their album Mistakes on Purpose came out in 2017 as \u00c9thiopiques 30, and that June they played it at the National Theatre in Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n He has been busy ever since. In August 2022 he played the Festival du Bout du Monde in Brittany, France. In March 2026, France made him a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, at a ceremony in Addis Ababa with the Alliance Ethio-Fran\u00e7aise. Earlier that month the African Jazz Village billed him with the Four Stars Band, and the Addis Jazz Festival 2026 billed him with Dawit Yifru.<\/p>\n On Thursday, November 12, 2026, the Embassy of Slovenia in Ethiopia said Ambassador Kristina Radej and a Slovenian film crew had met him again at the African Jazz Village to talk about future work together.<\/p>\n Kuku Sebsibe first sang on stage at the Hilton Hotel while she was still in high school. She went on to sing with the Ibex and Walias bands. Her duet with Alemayehu Eshete, Ingidayenesh, recorded with the Roha Band, made her a star. Her first album, Fikreh Beretabegne, came out in 1982.<\/p>\n She moved to the United States in 1988 and spent almost twenty years singing for the diaspora. She returned to Ethiopia in the early 2000s and recorded Tinish Geze Sitegn and Tizita, the album she calls her masterpiece.<\/p>\n On May 1, 2025, she released Dejazmatch, a 13 song album named for the title of her father. Abel Paulos composed nine of the songs, with words by Teddy Afro. Kuku called it her final studio album, but she told reporters she is “not retiring from singing.” She plans to put out singles and small sets of songs, and she will “continue as long as my inner self tells me to.”<\/p>\n Neway Debebe made his name in the late 1970s with the album Maebel Naw, recorded with the Roha Band. The album included hits such as Eshet Belahugn and Yetikimit Abeba. He also wrote melodies for other singers, including Tilahun Gessesse.<\/p>\n Neway moved to the United States in 1991 and lived there for more than 16 years, releasing Ageren Alresam and Yene Deha. He returned to Ethiopia in 2007, the year of the Ethiopian millennium, and released a single called Gondar in 2022.<\/p>\n Not every story has a new chapter. These are some of the golden age singers who have died.<\/p>\n Two of them had walked away from the stage long before. Muluken Melesse became a born again Christian in the early 1980s and turned down repeated calls to return to secular music. He spent his later years in the Washington area and traveled widely to preach. Hirut Bekele retired in 1994, joined the Meserete Kristos Church and recorded gospel albums. She gave the money from them to her church.<\/p>\n Their old records still play on Ethiopian radio and keep coming back in reissues abroad. And for the stars still with us, the music is not over yet.<\/p>\nAster Aweke: Home Again, Still Recording<\/h2>\n
Hailu Mergia: From Taxi Driver to World Stages<\/h2>\n
![\"Hailu](\"https:\/\/tewnet.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/inbody-hailu-mergia-perth-2025.jpg\")
Girma Beyene: Thirty Years Away, Then a French Knighthood<\/h2>\n
Kuku Sebsibe: One Final Album, Not a Goodbye<\/h2>\n
Neway Debebe: The Voice of Silk Comes Home<\/h2>\n
The Voices We Have Lost<\/h2>\n
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\n \nSinger<\/th>\n Died<\/th>\n Place<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Menelik Wossenachew (\u121d\u1292\u120d\u12ad \u12c8\u1235\u1293\u1278\u12cd)<\/td>\n December 24, 2008<\/td>\n Addis Ababa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Tilahun Gessesse (\u1325\u120b\u1201\u1295 \u1308\u1220\u1220)<\/td>\n April 19, 2009<\/td>\n Addis Ababa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Alemayehu Eshete (\u12d3\u1208\u121b\u12e8\u1201 \u12a5\u1238\u1274)<\/td>\n September 2, 2021<\/td>\n Addis Ababa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Ali Birra (\u12d3\u120a \u1262\u122b)<\/td>\n November 6, 2022<\/td>\n Adama<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hirut Bekele (\u1202\u1229\u1275 \u1260\u1240\u1208)<\/td>\n May 12, 2023<\/td>\n Addis Ababa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Getachew Kassa (\u130c\u1273\u1278\u12cd \u12ab\u1233)<\/td>\n February 21, 2024<\/td>\n Addis Ababa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Muluken Melesse (\u1219\u1209\u1240\u1295 \u1218\u1208\u1230)<\/td>\n April 9, 2024<\/td>\n Washington, D.C. area<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n