Sunny Ethiopian grooves, all in with iconic Ms. Aster Aweke, reggae à la Ivory Coast with none less than Alpha Blondie! Selam in cooperation with Stockholms Culture Festival ensures that Gustaf Adolfs Torg will be simmering with rhythms and partying audience!
Before the concerts DJ DALION warms up and the evening ends with a big party at the GAT square with DJ Justine (Sugarcane etc) delivering the latest music from the African continent’s new urban movements!
Aster Aweke & Masinko Band (Ethiopia)
Her charisma and vocal style has been compared to both Ella Fitzgerald and Aretha Franklin! And her voice; smooth, supple and suggestive – tame and wild at the same time. Aster was born around 1960 in Gonder in northern Ethiopia, but moved early to the capital Addis Ababa. There, she began singing in bars and clubs with various groups as a teenager, including The Roha Band. In the late seventies many artists fled from the Ethiopian civil war, namely Mengistu’s military regime that censored all text and music. Aster tried for the longest to stay in Addis but eventually moved to an exile colony in Washington, D.C. Today she divides her time between Addis Ababa and the United States. Her 24th album, “Ewedihalehu” (I love you), was produced by Abegasu Kibrework Shiota, a faithful companion through the years, as well as exciting new producers Henock Negash and Maru.
Alpha Blondy & the Solar System (Ivory Coast)
With his 12-piece band “Solar System” is one of the world’s most popular reggae artists, the man who put Ivory Coast on the reggae map and proved that the genre was not just exclusive to Jamaica. Over the years it has remained his primary concern to distribute a message of peace and reconciliation, he was even nominated the “Ambassador for Peace” in Ivory Coast by the UN.
His latest album, Positive Energy (2015) contains several brilliant guests such as Ijahman and Tarrus Riley, zouk master Jacob Desvarieux and a stunning trio in the song “Allah Tano”, Nawfel from Tunisia, Issam from Morocco and Ismaël Isaac from Ivory Coast. It is a strong and spiritual song dedicated to Alpha’s grandmother. “It shows that Islam is not the private property of a few violent people. You can talk about God and about love without bloodshed, “said Alpha.
We look forward to welcoming Alpha Blondy and his band the Solar System, his faithful crew of musicians from Barbados, France, Ivory Coast and Jamaica!
