BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The death and burial ceremony of the late Ethiopian singer Madingo Afework reminded the public and his countless fans of the events that accompanied the death of another Ethiopian music icon, namely Tilahun Gessesse who is rightly considered the king of Ethiopian music. The difference between Tilahun and Madingo was that the former died in his late sixties while the latter left us last week at the age of 44, when his star was still rising and life seemed to smile on his talent.
What is striking about the two modern musicians was that their burial ceremonies were as flashy or flamboyant as their artistic lives. By the way, Madingo is buried in a grave next to Tilahun’s tomb at the Trinity Cathedral at Arta Kilo, the centre of activity for much of Ethiopia’s modern political events before, and after the Revolution down to this day. Most patriots, dignitaries and important personalities are usually buried at the same cathedral. The remains of the anti-fascist resistance fighters are also kept there. Yet, Mandingo’s fights and triumphs are of a different kind, as he is considered one of the rising stars of the new generation of Ethiopian musicians.
Madingo’s life could be more interesting than his death and burial but judging by the universal mourning that accompanied his death, the singer was turned into a folk hero almost overnight as soon as his death was announced over the national media outlets. He was not an ordinary artist but a patriot who launched his career in the army music band, travelled to the war fronts at times when the country was threatened by internal and external aggressors and more recently when the TPLF marauders invaded the northern regions of Amhara and Afar.
Madingo went straight to where the action took place and entertained the soldiers with patriotic songs and dances stirring their love for their country and playing this time the role of an effective agitator and propagandist more effective perhaps than the conventional media outlets for rallying the nation to a collective cause.
His death was as enigmatic as relatively short as his life. He spent the night at the club returned in the morning, ordered his breakfast at home and went to buy medicines for some health issue that is not yet officially announced. A few hours later he was in his death throes and taken to a nearby clinic where his death was announced. This was the story but not the entire story. At the time of this writing, the cause of his death was still under investigation both by police and the medical professionals who treated him at the hospital. What a tragic end! Madingo was not the first to die quite unexpectedly.
There were half a dozen of them before him: Tamirat Desta, and others. These people live and die in the glare of publicity, not far from the TV cameras and always on the spotlights. They are the most famous people, celebrities that claim constant attention from an adoring public usually crazy with music. Their lives are closely followed up by the media and their deaths come as calamities, unbelievable and hard to accept as if they are not expected to die one day.
Death brought Madingo’s personal achievements as a singer and patriot to a new dimension. It turned him into a national folk hero who is remembered both as an accomplished musician and a soldier always on the ready to jump to action at the first opportunity to answer to the call of the motherland. That was why his burial was so important as it had no precedent for the way it was undertaken and the grief and adoration it elicited from his fans and the general public.
Although Ethiopians are serious with the burial of the famous dead, there are such rare moments in their history when personal grieving turned into a massive mourning at a time when the nation is going through one of its most difficult periods in its modern history. The late Madingo was, in a way an embodiment of the collective catharsis that was evident during his burial. It was an expression of the respect that Ethiopians accord to their heroes whether they are long distance runners, soldiers or musicians whose memories are imprinted in the collective psyche of the people.
I have little appreciation for death and the burial ceremonies that are so elaborate and so dignified that you wish the dead person could see how he is honored by his family friends and fans.
My first encounter with the late Ethiopian singer came back in 2002 when he was staging night performances at the then Razzmatazz Club in downtown Addis. One evening, we travelled to the club to unwind after work to the tunes of the latest songs and click glasses in honor of our success at the now defunct private newspaper we called The Sun. We had great times both at work and recreation because we enjoyed the freedom to publish our paper every Wednesday and spend the same evening at different night clubs, looking for potential stories as well as enjoying ourselves.
That night our story was Mandigo who joined us during one of the breaks and talked to us about his life and career. We went out of the club house and had a vivid chat in the starry night outside. We took brief notes of his talks while one of us took his picture as he stood alone farther from us. The story about Madingo was published the following week and we concluded that our encounter with him was not pointless. We regularly went to the same place and saw him singing to a full audience. I never forget how he welcomed us warmly every time we went there.
As he stood on the stage with the microphone in one hand, Madingo waved his other hand to us, smiling that flashy smile of his that could be seen even from a good distance. We stopped to go there shortly afterwards and I had never had another opportunity to see or talk the legendary singer. I listened to the new albums he gave the public one after the other. I watched him rise to new heights and winning more fans to his side.
The late Madingo Afewerk, who was just rising to fame at that time was a popular sight at our favorite nightclub and we had a good opportunity to talk to him during one of the breaks. He was very young, always smiling, and sometimes a bit shy and embarrassed as if he came from a rural background. He was in fact a boy from Gondar, the seat of ancient Ethiopian emperors and the epicenter of the struggle for Ethiopian unity with emperor Tewodros as the leading figure. Gondar is also famous for its singers, its warriors, its heroes and its handicraftsmen, palace and church builders who produced some of the wonders of architectural creativity still capturing the imagination of the entire world. Gondar has also produced many artists who excelled at the national level and even went abroad to the Diaspora where they joined and famous Ethiopians who made it in many other fields of endeavors. Madingo too could join the Ethiopian Diaspora in the US but he apparently chose to stay here while making several trips to the so-called ‘the land of opportunities.’
Madingo’s burial was an event that made it clear how the singer was loved, and adored by his friends and fans as well as won respect from official circles, thanks to his patriotic and artistic activities at war fronts. He loved to go to the fronts not because he loved adventure and appreciated warfare. He went there simply because he loved his country and was eager to contribute his share of patriotism whenever his motherland called him. The singer was also remarkable for paying his due to his motherland because he rose to the top of his career here in his native land and was loved and supported by his own people.
A number of young artists have passed away in recent times and some of the deaths were as shocking as they remained uninvestigated. We remember how pop star Micheal Jackson’s death had raised storms of protests and inquiries in America. Anybody who dies under mysterious circumstances anywhere in the world deserves medical investigations as to the causes of their deaths.
The fury about Michael Jackson’s sudden death could only abate after the examination results were made public and the doctor responsible for the medical mistake was known to the public. By the same token, the Ethiopian public needs to know how a singer who spent the night at the club and came back home in the morning and order breakfast before going to a certain pharmacy and left this world after apparently taking medication. This point was hinted during Madingo’s funeral ceremony by the man who presided over the event. It is now up to the medical world to shed light on the circumstances behind his early and tragic death.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2022
