“‘Tizita’ is an old song and we always play that music, no matter what,” Mergia said in a phone interview from his home near Washington, D.C. “The sound is good and everything is good. But my idea is ‘OK: Why not change it?’”
Answering that question has shaped Mergia’s life. More than 50 years ago, he was a crucial part of Ethiopian popular music’s golden era. Mergia continued experimenting after moving to the United States in the early 1980s but it took decades for his work to be widely heard. Now, at 78, he regularly tours globally, including with two upcoming concerts in Chicago.
All of which is a world away from the small central Ethiopian town where Mergia was born. Early on, he was interested in such ancient instruments as the single-string masenqo. Around the time he turned 10, he moved to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, and after singing for a while picked up the accordion.
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