{"id":86450,"date":"2018-02-22T01:35:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T06:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethiopianreview.com\/index\/?p=86450"},"modified":"2019-02-05T02:39:46","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T07:39:46","slug":"hailu-mergia-lala-belu-music-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/86450","title":{"rendered":"Hailu Mergia &#8211; Lala Belu (music review)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/793467cf9c7e37f6fe5d93e72fee7da2c67212e2\/0_450_3543_2127\/master\/3543.jpg?w=780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\nWhen Ethiopia\u2019s Walias Band toured North America in 1981, most of the group jumped ship, eager to escape the \u201cRed Terror\u201d that ruled their homeland. Among them was keyboardist Hailu Mergia, who joined the Ethiopian expat population in Washington DC as a taxi driver, a job he still maintains between gigs. With the rediscovery of Addis Ababa\u2019s 1970s \u201cgolden age\u201d, for which the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch&#8217;s 2005 film Broken Flowers proved a major catalyst, musicians like Mergia and Mulatu Astatke have rebuilt their careers.<br \/>\nLala Belu is the former\u2019s first album in 15 years, and proves worth the wait. [&#8230;] <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/feb\/18\/hailu-mergia-lala-belu-review-a-thrilling-ride-awesome-tapes-tizita\">CONTINUE READING<\/a><br \/>\nLISTEN<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WYqZaABb2jQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Hailu Mergia \u2014 Gum Gum\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Ethiopia\u2019s Walias Band toured North America in 1981, most of the group jumped ship, eager to escape the \u201cRed Terror\u201d that ruled their homeland. Among them was keyboardist Hailu Mergia, who joined the Ethiopian expat population in Washington DC as a taxi driver, a job he still maintains between gigs. With the rediscovery of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-86450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-mum","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86450","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264002,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86450\/revisions\/264002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}