Éthiopiques vs EthioSonic

about world music and globalized music

Abstract

This article deals with music influences post-WW2 between North and South and vice versa. It traces the concept of “World Music” emergence, then the adoption of African grooves by mixed bands as well as non-African musicians, opening the way to “globalized music”. Because Ethiopia remained never colonized over 3000 years (apart from five years under fascist Italian occupation), the modern part of the country’s musical culture remained totally unknown to the rest of the world. Recordings of modern (or urban) Ethiopian music were simply inexistent outside of the country before 1986, when other musics from Africa had kind of loud-speakers in the colonial capital cities Paris, London, Brussels or Lisbon, for example. A focus about Ethiopian musics through two music series (éthiopiques and ethioSonic) complete the scope of this study.