Ask anyone in Addis to name the greatest Ethiopian singer and you will get one answer before you finish the question.
Tilahun Gessesse was born on 27 September 1940 in Waliso, a town about two hours south-west of the capital. He came up through the Hager Fikir Association, then the Imperial Bodyguard Band, then the National Theatre — the institutions that trained almost everyone who mattered in Ethiopian music in that era. By the 1960s his tenor was regarded as the finest pop voice in the country, and the nickname stuck: The Voice.
The Golden Age
The stretch from the early sixties to the mid seventies is the period the Ethiopiques compilations later made famous abroad — horns, organ, a rhythm section borrowing from soul and funk, and vocal lines built on Ethiopian pentatonic scales. Tilahun sat at the centre of it. Yehagere Shita and Tiz Alegn Yetintu both landed in 1970. Min Libejegn followed in 1972, Aykedashm Lebe in 1974.
What separated him was not range. It was restraint. He would hold a note flat and unornamented until the room leaned in, then bend it a quarter-tone and take the whole thing somewhere else.
The famine years
Through the 1970s and 1980s he used that voice for something other than records. His recordings and appearances during the famine years raised substantial sums for relief — a fact that, in Ethiopia, is remembered as clearly as any song. It is part of why the affection for him has never been only musical.
Addis Ababa University gave him an honorary doctorate. The Ethiopian Fine Art and Mass Media Prize Trust gave him a lifetime achievement award. He died in Addis Ababa on 19 April 2009, from complications of diabetes. The funeral filled the streets.
Why we put him on a shirt
Because a generation raised outside Ethiopia knows the name and has never heard the records. A tee is a small thing, but it is a door. Someone asks what it is, and you get to tell them.
The Tilahun Gessesse Tribute Tee and the Portrait Tee are both part of our Ethiopian Music Legends collection — printed to order in the US, free US shipping over $50.