He fled his native country with his group, the Walias Band, in 1981 and now drives a cab in Washington DC, in which he also composes. But, despite his lo-fi setup, ‘if you have a good bassline you can create anything’
On a Monday afternoon, Hailu Mergia is driving through the suburbs of Washington DC, his laminated cabby licence tacked to the back of his seat. It’s rare that one of his customers realises that their driver is an Ethiopian musical legend, the keyboardist and accordionist of the Walias Band, one of the most popular groups from the country’s 70s golden age. When Mergia speaks of that era – growing up near Addis Ababa, raising goats and sheep, singing traditional folk music, joining the military, forming the Walias Band and eventually leaving Ethiopia for good – the dates get fuzzy, but the experiences remain clear.
He is not even sure how old he is – either 71 or 72. When he was born, birth certificates weren’t always issued. He wishes that he had footage of the Walias Band’s 12-hour concerts at the Addis Ababa Hilton hotel: all-nighters for club-goers seeking refuge during the curfews that Ethiopia’s Derg government enforced for 16 years. “Maybe we didn’t care,” he says, “or maybe we didn’t think we’d get this far.” By “this far”, he means his new album – his first in more than 30 years. Mergia slides the CD of Lala Belu into his cab’s stereo and presses play on some of his most incandescent and exploratory music. As we drive past faceless strip malls, warm, brushing chords and accordion fill the air, Ethiopian pentatonic rhythms mingling with American bop and fusion.
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