Stones Throw’s Egon recently did a piece for NPR covering lost classic funk records from Ethiopia. Link
Record collectors of the hip-hop generation first discovered the music of Ethiopia’s Mulatu Astatke in the early 1990s. At that time, dealers at the legendary Roosevelt Hotel Record Convention in Manhattan peddled copies of Mulatu of Ethiopia, released on the small Worthy imprint, for princely sums due to its then-unknown drum break, prime meat for sampling. Those of us entranced by the otherworldly sounds searched in vain for other albums that sounded like this masterpiece. Until, that is, Francis Falceto released Ethiopiques 4, a compilation of the two supremely rare albums Astatke released on the Ethiopian Amha label.
