Renowned journalist and song writer Tsige Gebreamlak, has passed away on Sunday, 8 September 2023 and laid to rest yesterday at St Saalite Mihret Church, around CMC area, here in Addis Ababa.
Tsige was born on 4 July 1959 in Mekele city to his father Gebre Amlake G / Michael and his mother, Teshaynesh Gezahegne. After completing primary and secondary education at Emperor Yohanes School in his hometown, he had graduated with bachelor’s degree in foreign languages and literature from Addis Ababa University.
Tsige has been in prison for about a year due to his political participation in EPRP. After being released from prison, he formed a music band along with friends. One of his works that made the band famous was the song “Yeafe tagaye” which literally means nominal fighters.
This song has won him close friendship with one of Ethiopia’s to song writers Yilma Gebrab. By then, Yilma was the guitarist of the Band. “He [Tsige] was a man who despised the earthly world, did not obey the cadre, and had a strong personality of his own” said Yilma.
“Tsige used to write poems in few minutes and sent to us soon while he was in prison,” he recalled with admiration.
After being release from prison, Tsige continued to compose lyrics and melody that made many famous singers of our country more influential and popular. Among the singers who have performed Tsige’s works are Honorary Doctor Tilahun Gesese, Hirut Bekele, Netsanet Melese, Tsehaye Yohannes, Melkamu Tebeje, Teshome Wolde and Zemene Melese. In particular, the seven songs in the album entitled ‘Yichi Nat chawata’ which Dr. Tilahun played after recovering from his illness, are the works of Tsige.
Tsige has written the lyrics and melody of the 16 works for the two albums of the famous veteran singer Melkamu Tebeje, including “Gud Andsemon New” and “Yan Gora Beyet Liksesew”.
He also wrote the lyrics of many songs by the famous female singer Netsanet Melese such as “Ende Hamle Tsehaye”, “Ere Min Honehal Semonune Ante Sew”, and “Menew jal”.
Tsige, has contributed many poems and songs to the cultural center of the university. He was also known for delivering deep, unique and system-shaking poems at programs organized in the university campus.
In particular, his lyrics of the song “Yichi nat chaweta” by Ethiopia’s all time famous singer Tilahun Gesese’s was the subject of hot political criticism and literary discussion in the Ethiopian newspapers of the Addis Zemen, Yezareyitu Ethiopia including the “Serto Ader” newspaper, which was the organ of the then ruling party, Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE). This art works had put him at loggerheads with the officials of the then Derg regime.
Another popular music especially among children for decades was “’Tsehaye Demekech”. It was popularly beamed on the children’s program of Ethiopian Radio in the 1970’s to 80s. However some song writers made a botched claim to have written this song. Tsige’s reaction for such claim was to keep silent for years and finally expressing the truth on one of his Facebook posts.
Tsige’s colleagues and friends testify to his diligent at work, voracious reading habit and professionalism filled with deep and free opinion.
A lot many of Tsige’s artistic works are left unpublished. It is also known that he was admirable and popular by presenting in-depth analysis, criticisms and artistic works in newspapers.
Though especially remembered for his writing skills Tsige was also transferred from The Ethiopian Herald newspaper to the English Desk of Ethiopian Television where he worked as the head of the department for 3 years.
Then, starting from freelance journalism, he worked as editor-in-chief for The Ethiopia Herald, the largest English newspaper of our country for four years. In recognition of his skills which he had proved in practice, the former President of the country Dr. Negaso Gidada, who was the Minister of Information at the time, had offered him a position as the general manager of one of the media institutions. He, however, declined to leadership position as he rather preferred to work as a professional.
Tsige was dismissed from his position as Editor inChief of The Ethiopian Herald for allowing the publication of an opinion article that entitled “BPR cannot be implemented with this kind of leadership and working system” which criticizes the implementation of the Business Process Reengineering (BPR), in the 1990s.
After that, he became an excellent professional who served diligently in various institutions. In particular, when he served as a member of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, he prepared statements and other written documents on human rights issues with great depth of thought.
While working as the head of the Information and Communication Team of the Human Rights Commission, he traveled to Ghana and Greece to exchange experiences with experts. In the past, he had the opportunity to visit America, China, Israel, Djibouti and other countries.
In 1974, Tsige was deployed to Kebri Dehar , in today’s Somali State as a participant of National youth campaign for Development popularly known as Edget Behiberet as well as the villagization campaign in Metekel area located in todays’s Benishangul Gumuz state.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 10 OCTOBER 2023
