{"id":278212,"date":"2019-06-05T17:46:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T21:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEDnh1wQgqDU_RVB8pVnvnO0qGAgEKg8IACoHCAowjtSUCjC30XQwnqi5AQ?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:15:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:15:52","slug":"the-washington-post-rediscovered-hailu-mergia-the-ethiopian-keyboardist-who-drove-a-u-s-taxi-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/278212","title":{"rendered":"The Washington Post rediscovered Hailu Mergia, the Ethiopian keyboardist who drove a U.S. taxi for years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In June 2019 the Washington Post told how keyboardist Hailu Mergia, once a star in Ethiopia, spent about twenty years driving a taxi to and from Dulles International Airport before reissue labels and new audiences brought his music back into view.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-601742\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/culture-national-theatre-1280.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"The Washington Post rediscovered Hailu Mergia, the Ethiopian keyboardist who drove a U.S. taxi for years\" \/>\n<p>Between fares he would pull over and practice, keeping alive a sound that later found younger listeners far from Addis Ababa\u2019s old nightclub circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as culture and music archive, the Post profile dates the diaspora rediscovery of Mergia\u2019s career for English-language readers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/express\/2019\/06\/05\/keyboardist-hailu-mergia-left-behind-his-days-as-a-superstar-in-ethiopia-then-the-world-rediscovered-his-mind-blowing-music\/\">The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keyboardist Hailu Mergia left behind his days as a superstar in Ethiopia. Then the world rediscovered his mind-blowing music.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Washington PostFor 20 years, Hailu Mergia spent his days in a cab shuttling passengers to and from Dulles Inter&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":601742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/culture-national-theatre-1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1ani","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278212"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755049,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212\/revisions\/755049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}