Citizen Azmari. Ilana Webster-Kogen

      

      Citizen Azmari

      Ilana Webster-Kogen

       CITIZEN AZMARI

      Making Ethiopian Music in Tel Aviv

      Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut

      Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 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

      5 4 3 2 1

      Cover illustration: Shooting Stars by Fikru Gebremariam.

       CONTENTS

       List of Illustrations vii

       Acknowledgments ix

       Note on Transliteration xiii

       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

       Conclusion 182

       Notes 191

       Bibliography 209

       Index 229

      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 supported my PhD fieldwork, the basis for four chapters. Special thanks go to Geraldine Auerbach and Jennifer Jankel, past and current chairs of the JMI. The University of London’s Central Research Fund and the Israel Institute offered further research support that made it possible to complete this work. Chapter 3 is derived, in part, from an article published in Ethnomusicology Forum on March 11, 2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17411912.2013.879034. I also thank Marla Zubel of Wesleyan University Press for her work on the manuscript in its early days, Jaclyn Wilson, and Suzanna Tamminen for seeing the project through with utmost patience, as well as the anonymous reviewers whose comments I greatly appreciate. Susan Abel at the University Press of New England made the editorial process extremely smooth, together with David Hornik, whose meticulous work has so greatly benefited this project.

      I have presented the material in this book across the UK and Europe, the United States, Israel, and Ethiopia. I have workshopped chapters at the SEM, BFE, and AAA annual conferences, and at the Universities of Oxford, Manchester, Birmingham,