Mulatu Astatke | Artist

Mulatu Astatke is an Ethiopian jazz musician and arranger born 1943 in Jimma, Ethiopia. He is considered as the father of "Ethio-jazz" and a central figure during the Ethiopian Golden Age of Music in 1970s. Of Christian Amhara descent, Mulatu's family sent their son to learn engineering in Wales during the late 1950s. Instead, he began his education at Lindisfarne College near Wrexham before earning a degree in music at the Trinity College of Music in London, where he collaborated with jazz vocalist and percussionist Frank Holder. In the 1960s, Mulatu moved to the United States to enroll at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He studied vibraphone and percussion, combining his jazz and Latin music interests with traditional Ethiopian music. While living in the US, Mulatu became interested in Latin jazz and recorded his first two albums, Afro-Latin Soul, Volumes 1 & 2, in New York City in 1966. The records prominently feature Mulatu's vibraphone, backed by piano and congas playing Latin rhythms. His albums focus primarily on instrumental music, and Mulatu appears on all three known albums of instrumentals that were released during the Ethiopian Golden Age of Music in 1970s. Mulatu is credited with 15 full length studio albums, including collaborations with His Ethiopian Quintet, The Heliocentrics, and The Black Jesus Experience. Standout albums include Afro-Latin Soul (Vols 1 & 2) (1966), Mulatu of Ethiopia (1972), Yèkatit: Ethio Jazz (1974), Inspiration Information (2009), and Mulatu Plays Mulatu (2025). Mulatu's music has had an influence on other musicians from the Horn region, such as K'naan. His Western audience increased when the film Broken Flowers (2005) directed by Jim Jarmusch featured seven of his songs, including one performed by Cambodian-American rock band Dengue Fever. National Public Radio used his instrumentals as beds under or between pieces, notably on the program This American Life. Samples of his were used by Nas, Damian Marley, Kanye West, Cut Chemist, Quantic, Madlib, and Oddisee. After meeting US-based Either/Orchestra in Addis Ababa in 2004, Mulatu began a collaboration with the band beginning with performances in Scandinavia in 2006 and London, New York, Germany, Holland, Glastonbury (UK), Dublin, and Toronto in 2008. In 2008, he collaborated with the London-based collective The Heliocentrics on the album Inspiration Information Vol. 3, which included re-workings of his Ethio-jazz classics with new material by the Heliocentrics and himself.

Artist Website: mulatuastatke.bandcamp.com

Featured Albums: Mulatu Astatke

Related Artists: The Heliocentrics