‘I would be happy to die on that stage’

Beloved Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed gave his final concert in Addis Ababa earlier this year. He spoke to Maya Misikir just days before.

Editor’s note: This interview is best read with a soundtrack. To start with, line up the song Tizita wherever you get your tunes: YouTube, Spotify or Apple Music

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Illustration by Yemsrach Yetneberk

People started arriving at Addis Ababa’s Millennium Hall from 4pm. By the time Mahmoud Ahmed stepped onto the stage, it was 1:35am and the place was packed. Despite the long wait, the crowd welcomed him with deafening cheers as he carefully made his way to the microphone, supported by an assistant and a cane. As usual, he was clad in his signature all-white woven traditional outfit.

Mahmoud bowed several times, acknowledging the adoration. Then he began to sing. As his familiar voice rang out, live in concert for the very last time, tears flowed down the faces in the audience. It is not for nothing that he is venerated as the king of nostalgia.

But this time, the nostalgia was for him.

Mahmoud Ahmed is a national icon, a living legend whose music has provided a soundtrack to almost every era of modern Ethiopian history. He rose to prominence in the time of Emperor Haile Selassie; kept playing through the night-time curfews imposed by the communist Derg regime; and then, as Ethiopia opened up, his songs wove themselves into the fabric of modern Ethiopian life.

He hasn’t made new music for several decades, but teenagers today can still belt out the words to his most famous songs. No wedding is complete without playing Yitbarek – “let it be blessed” in Amharic – at top volume (as per the illustration above). Academics study the poetry of his lyrics.

When people want to make a statement, they often reach for his music, like the anti-war protesters who blasted Selam (peace) through the streets of Addis Ababa as they marched in 2022. Or like former president Sahle-Work Zewde, who cryptically tweeted a line from the Mahmoud Ahmed song ዝምታ ነው መልሴ (Silence is my answer) before tendering her resignation last year.

Photo: Jack Vartoogian/ Getty Images

But perhaps his most celebrated song of all is Tizita, a song about nostalgia. One popular version of it is a mournful lament for a lost love:

ትናንትናን ጥሶ ዛሬን ተንተርሶ
It has passed on from yesterday, and it’s leaning on today
ነገንም ተውሶ አምናንም አፍርሶ
It borrows from tomorrow, it has run over from the year before
ይመጣል ትዝታሽ ጓዙን አግበስብሶ
Your nostalgia comes with all its baggage
ይመጣል ትዝታሽ ጓዙን አግበስብሶ
Your nostalgia comes with all its baggage

These themes of lost love, heartbreak and longing run like a golden thread through much of his work. Perhaps, in a country that has known more than its fair share of heartbreak, this explains part of his popularity.

Mahmoud still loves Tizita as much as everyone else. “I get goosebumps when I hear others perform the song,” he told The Continent, in an interview just days before his final concert. “I could sing it all day and night.”

Shoe-shine boy

Mahmoud was born in 1941, to parents who came from rural Gurage, in the Central Ethiopia Region. He spent his young years listening to beloved singers like Bizunesh Bekele and Tilahun Gessesse – later, they would be friends, and sing alongside each other. But this future was difficult to imagine as he cycled through various odd jobs: busboy, handyman, shoe-shiner.

Mahmoud got his big break in the 1960s. He was a teenager, working in a club in Addis Ababa, when he volunteered to replace an absent singer of the Imperial Bodyguard Band. He remembers his supervisor offering him something to boost his courage, but he didn’t need it.

“Even with nerves, after the first song, I couldn’t even tell you what was in front of me anymore,” he said. “I got lost in the music.”

At that time, Ethiopian music was dominated by traditional performers known as azmaris. These were poets who commented on social and political life, accompanied by traditional instruments like masinqos, a single string fiddle. Mahmoud – who went on to make the Imperial Bodyguard Band his own – pushed the envelope to make night club music, helping usher in what is known today as the golden age of Ethiopian music in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the 1980s, he began touring Ethiopian diaspora communities in the United States and Europe, which brought his music to a wider audience. A 1986 collection, Ere Mele Mela, earned him a review in the New York Times (“a vital pop-music style from a little-known corner of the world”, it said).

Francis Falceto, the French music journalist behind the well-known Ethiopiques music series, said that it was Ere Mele Mela that first piqued his interest in Ethiopian music. Mahmoud’s tracks are extensively featured in the Ethiopiques volumes alongside fellow legends like Mulatu Astatke, the percussionist regarded as the father of the Ethio-jazz genre.

The last note

Ethiopia’s love for Mahmoud is not without its complications. Ethiopian nationalists have, at times, instrumentalised his music for their own ends. During the border war with Eritrea from 1998-2000, Mahmoud performed in front of soldiers to boost their morale. He sang Selam, a call for peace; but he also sang his patriotic single Enat Ethiopia Yedeferesh Yiwdem (Mother Ethiopia, may your violators perish).

The song’s lyric threatens invaders and extols the virtues of dying for one’s country. The song made a comeback during the recent Tigray war, as a jingle in pro-war broadcasts on state media.

For Mahmoud, the responsibility of performing not just for a crowd but for a nation can feel heavy. He says he has always prayed for guidance on how to keep Ethiopians happy. Now, though, the music must do the talking. “I don’t want to dictate how people see me or my work, I leave this to them. May God show them the love that they have shown me.”

In Addis Ababa, as the curtain fell on his final note, there was plenty of love in the air. And tizita.

“These are people I have served, and they have shown me love and helped me grow. To know that they are now here to show me their respect at this farewell, I would be happy to die on that stage.”