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Saturday 18 October 2014

Bahir Dar Days

Almost exactly two years ago I had a fantastic trip to Ethiopia. One of the many highlights was visiting the wonderfully decorated churches on the islands and peninsulas of Lake Tana.

The base for exploring Lake Tana is Bahir Dar, which is a pretty groovy town in its own right. While I was there a nice man in a local record shack bunged about 150 mp3s onto a disc for me and charged me next to nothing for the pleasure. I somehow managed to mislay the disc and have only recently rediscovered it. Here is a small selection of its many delights.

"Egnaw Entarek" - Neway Debebe

"Grmamogese Nesh" - Mikias Chernet

"Webetu" - Dagmawit Teshaye

Today's clip brings you the song that was all over the Ethiopian airwaves when I was there. For the record I would like to make it clear that I disapprove strongly of the inappropriate focus on feminine pulchritude in the video - obviously. But the song itself is ridiculously catchy.

3 comments:

  1. Every time I hear that riff I think of this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7vX8hBudcQ

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  2. You may be on to something. It is largely based on "Sawale", an old African hit for Cardinal Rex Lawson in the 50s or 60s. It is entirely possible that Rex in turn lifted it from "Peanut Vendor"

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  3. I had to look up pulchritude. By the way, when is the next rhyming series? I like the "oggins".

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