v.a. - Gurage Beats [ethiopia]

       The Gurage people are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, its population is 6,867,377 people, of whom 792,659 are urban dwellers. 

This is 5.53% of the total population of Ethiopia, or 9.52% of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR).

Hailu Fereja - Esherrerre

(Guragigna Music)

          The Gurage people traditionally inhabit a fertile, semi-mountainous region in southwest Ethiopia, about 125 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, bordering the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River (a tributary of the Omo River) to the southwest, and Lake Zway in the east. In addition, according to the 2007 Ethiopian national census the Gurage can also be found in large numbers in Addis Ababa, Oromia Region, Dire Dawa, Harari Region, Somali Region, Amhara Region, Gambela Region, Benishangul-Gumuz Region, and Tigray Region.

             The groups that are subsumed under the term Gurage originated in the Tigray region of Ethiopia as the descendants of military conquerors during the Aksumite empire. The Gurage languages, which are not always mutually intelligible, belong to the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Some of these have been influenced by neighbouring Cushitic languages. The Gurage are mainly Christian—members largely of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church—and Muslim.

              Settled agriculturalists, the Gurage centre their lives on the cultivation of their staple crop, the Ethiopian, or false, banana (Ensete ventricosum), prized not for its “false” (or inedible) fruit but for its roots.

                The languages spoken by the Gurage are known as the Gurage languages. The variations among these languages are used to group the Gurage people into three dialectically varied subgroups: Northern, Eastern and Western. However, the largest group within the Eastern subgroup, known as the Silt'e, identify foremost as Muslims.

01 - Aster Aweke - Ebo (8:02)

02 - Mahmoud Ahmed - Gichamue (4:38)

03 - Ashenafi Zeberga - Sriway (5:55)

04 - Behailu Kassahun - Ayo Eshururu (5:38)

05 - Biruk Befekadu - Sebelbelata (3:59)

06 - Ashenafi Zeberga - Segele (4:56)

07 - Mikiyas Negussie - Be3ste (4:51)

08 - Reshad Kedir - Amama (4:46)

09 - Yared Negu - Yemerkato Arada (3:56)

10 - Mykey Shewa - Aegba (ኤግባ) (4:15)

11 - Mewded Kibru - Yawe Way (5:57)

12 - Teddy Yo - Guragaeton (3:55)

13 - Desalegn Mersha - Waywato (5:16)

14 - Jossy Gebre - SebenSema (4:44)

15 - Hailu Fereja - Esherrerre (5:21)

16 - Feleke Maru - Ker (4:51)

17 - Wendi Mak - Yene Mar (5:26)

18 - Temesgen Gebrgziabeher - Yemeskel Let Mata (5:36)