30th
The Ethiopian Wesley Willis
With all the keyboards knocking about in Ethiopia, it’s inevitable that there are going to be varying levels of mastery. There are plenty of capable musicians but, for me, their music is predictable and soulless. However, on my 30th birthday last year I stumbled upon something completely unexpected and a lot more charming and amusing. A fellow volunteer who lived in Nekemte gave me some CDs made up in a local music shop featuring a selection of music – some old, mostly new. Amongst all the usual guff was an odd gem. Alemu Erwin Skibba (spelt incorrectly by the guy in the music shop), whom I presume is a local wannabe singer/musician, sounds like Wesley Willis, a schizophrenic musician from Chicago who is now dead. As soon as the frantic cowbell beat and twitchy keys kick in, you can tell you’re in for a bizarre treat. Although Alemu is a man, it is a woman’s voice in my head, and a pretty terrible one at that, complete with popping on the mike and too much volume. If I had a misguided auntie who tried her hand at Ethiopian pop music, she might sound like this. In one song, he shuffles off the mike to let his friend – a girl? – do a verse but she is so out of time that she finishes way ahead of the backing music. It is true bedroom music chancery.
But I thank Alemu Erwin Skibba because this is more than a hilarious failed effort to make music. Like Wesley Willis, there’s something a bit disconcerting about it, perhaps the scale it’s played in or the minor key of the keyboard atmospherics. The lo-fi quality also roughens it up a little. The swing sing-a-long fourth track is the most sinister, probably because of the single-note backing. I cringe and enjoy it in equal measures.
Disappointingly, my girlfriend explained that the songs were versions of well-known Ethiopian hits. Alemu didn’t write them himself. But if given the choice of the originals (unless they’re played by the groups of the ‘Golden Era’) and Alemu’s renditions, I’d happily listen to Alemu.
