Citizen Azmari
Ilana Webster-Kogen
CITIZEN AZMARI
Making Ethiopian Music in Tel Aviv
Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
© 2018 Ilana Webster-Kogen
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill
Typeset in Minion Pro
Grateful acknowledgment is made for support from the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Webster-Kogen, Ilana, author.
Title: Citizen Azmari: making Ethiopian music in Tel Aviv / Ilana Webster-Kogen.
Description: Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, [2018] | Series: Music/culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018003966 (print) | LCCN 2018008560 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819578341 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819578327 (cloth: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780819578334 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Music—Social aspects—Israel—Tel Aviv. | Ethiopians—Israel—Tel Aviv—Music—History and criticism. | Jews, Ethiopian—Israel—Tel Aviv—Music—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML3917.I77 (ebook) | LCC ML3917.I77 W43 2018 (print) | DDC 781.62/92805694—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003966
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Cover illustration: Shooting Stars by Fikru Gebremariam.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION Symbolic Codes of Citizenship 1
ONE Afrodiasporic Myths: Ester Rada and the Atlantic Connection 22
TWO Ethiopianist Myths of Dissonance and Nostalgia 51
THREE Zionist Myths and the Mainstreaming of Ethiopian-Israeli Music 79
FOUR Embodying Blackness through Eskesta Citizenship 104
FIVE “What about My Money”: Themes of Labor and Citizenship in Ethiopian-Israeli Hip-Hop 133
SIX Levinski Street, Tel Aviv’s Horn Mediascape 162
Audio files can be found at http://wesleyan.edu/wespress/citizen_azmari/ for this book. Files available at that address are labeled consecutively through the book as (Audio file).
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
FIGURE 2.1 Site of Habesh restaurant, 2017 54
FIGURE 2.2 Skeletal melody for tezeta 67
FIGURE 3.1 “Tew Semagn Hagere” melody, performed by Alemu Aga 97
FIGURE 3.2 “Tew Semagn Hagere” in “Bo’ee” 97
FIGURE 6.1 Graffiti in the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station 164
FIGURE 6.2 Concert advertisements at the Red Sea Internet Café 165
FIGURE 6.3 Construction boom in Tel Aviv 167
FIGURE 6.4 Interior of the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station 171
FIGURE 6.5 Nahum Records from Levinski Street 175
FIGURE 6.6 Tenät Restaurant by day 180
TABLES
TABLE 1.1 Funk, soul, jazz, Ethio-jazz, and gospel characteristics in Ester Rada’s songs 33
TABLE 1.2 Comparison of African American musical elements 43
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The majority of my research partners remain anonymous in this book because of issues connected to religion and migration in the state of Israel. I wish I could thank them individually, but hope it will suffice to offer this book in gratitude and mutuality. I name musicians with public profiles like Ester Rada, Axum, and Dejen Manchlot, and artists connected to the community like Dr. Ruth Eshel and The Idan Raichel Project. Many thanks are due to the musicians, audience members, and community workers who gave me their time.
I gratefully acknowledge the institutions that have funded my research since 2008. The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) in London
