New debut music album DIASPORA releases

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - A new music album entitled ‘Diaspora’ was released by Alex Olympia last Friday. The album that is distributed by I.s Records has twelve new songs by the new artist Alemayehu Tekle a.k.a. Alex.
“There are lots of forums and talk shows that talk about brain drain issues, but you don’t hear many things done to help the Diaspora to contribute to Ethiopia”, Alex explains. “We hear shocking details that highlight the alarming rate of the brain drain. But we don’t do much to curb the phenomenon.”

“One medical doctor has told me that there are hundreds of doctors in the [United] States like Minnesota alone,” he adds, “I was inspired to do a song on that.”
Aspiring that the song would penetrate people’s hearts, Alex has chosen a memorable melody of the Ttigrigna singer Berhane Haile ‘Shew Beli’. The music clip of this artist has captured the hearts of music lovers and the artist has been of keen interest to the public through that song. One thing that stands out in the music clip is the use of subtitles. “The idea of Diaspora is not something that could be thoroughly covered in a five- minute song. And that is why I put a subtitle in the music clip,” he said.

“I just want to raise the idea for now and who knows maybe we might take lessons from countries like Nigeria who have Diaspora that give services from where they are.”
A market consultant by profession, Alex is currently studying Purchasing and Supply Management at the Addis Ababa University Commercial College. He has also been a candidate of a Dutch sponsored scholarship program to study Communication and Journalism. And he explains how that academic background has helped him to enrich the messages in his songs. “Had I started singing before going to college, maybe my songs would not have had a strong message and they may not last long.”

Alex also explains that he has written and sung more songs but was not able to include them in the album Diaspora. “My music arranger has gone abroad so I will have to cut them out from the album. Maybe they will be included in my next album,’ he added.
It took this artist two years to complete the album. And with the exception of Birhane Haile’s and another popular lyric, Alex did all the songs in the album Diaspora. The artist has written lyrics and songs for some artists as well.
Currently Alex is working in a French Networking company and has previously worked in several companies as sales and marketing agent.

He is currently working on promoting his album. Diaspora and Zare are the two songs that have music clips made at cost of 5,000 Birr each. And he is also working on the 3rd song from the Album Agenagnegn Mata [We met late in the game], and the 2nd song from the album Zelalem at a cost of 8,000 birr. Alex sold the album Diaspora to I.S Records for 200,000 Birr and the CD of Diaspora is expected to hit the market today.•

August 4, 2007