Individual liberties were curtailed and civil war was looming. The Derg Regime’s ‘Red Terror’ of 1977 had taken 40,000 lives and a famine was about to take 400,000 more. His words came during perilous times a communist dictatorship ruled while insurgencies raged around the country. “Ethiopia”, he sang, “Let me be your defender, for nobody knows me the way you know me”. Three decades earlier, Tilahun had sung for his country in a televised appearance at the Hager Fikir Theatre, his face stained from tears and his voice barely under control. It is apt that Ethiopia would weep for this man, for he too had wept for Ethiopia. He sang about everything: love, joy, freedom, work, pain and war. Tilahun had been there for everything in the past half-century, a constant and reassuring fixture of Ethiopian life, a “walking history” of his nation. But, in the minds and hearts of the Ethiopian people, that is precisely who Tilahun Gessesse is.

These are those shrieks and wails of grief normally reserved for the death of a close family member. Grown men reach for their pocket handkerchiefs and cover their faces, unable to maintain the composure that their attire impels. The spectacle is overwhelming: sobbing women try to give words to the pain, screaming in Amharic at the top of their lungs.

Seconds after his unveiling, the lingering silence gives way to a cacophony: not of cheering, or music, or applause, but the sound of people crying. The king of Ethiopian music stands proudly, a tuxedo etched across his figure, a expression of awe chiselled onto his face, his right hand outstretched, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his coat-tails caught against a fantastic wind. It’s a golden statue of Tilahun Gessesse. Together, they slowly remove the blanket from its position, and the crowd can at last see what it came for. A priest then delivers a blessing to the mysterious structure before nodding to a man in a suit. Still the crowd waits silently, staring at the blanketed object.

The crowd is silent as some ceremonial dancing commences an antiquated loudspeaker subjects the audience to a man’s distorted, dissonant singing for several minutes. Red, yellow and green triangular flags flutter as the men and women light up their candles. It’s April 2010 and the show is about to begin. At the centre of the crowd, a large object is covered in a red and gold blanket.

Priests saunter about, draped in gold robes and holding aloft the brightly coloured umbrellas that Ethiopians use to signify the Holy Spirit’s presence amongst the people. All kinds of Ethiopians are here: the military men stand uniformed at the front while the other men wear suits ranging from ragged to immaculate. They number perhaps a few thousand this time, a fraction of the million people who had turned out the previous year for Tilahun’s state funeral. A year and five days after Tilahun Gessesse’s death, another crowd spills onto the streets of Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian old music tilahun gessesse