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Mulatu Astatke

The father of ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke has made it his legacy to make more people discover and love the genre. Now we have the honour to present his first live performance in Malmö.

In spite of soon turning 80, legendary musician and composer Mulatu Astatke is still a hard working musician who continues to tour the world to spread his love child: ethio-jazz, jazz with elements of traditional Ethiopian music.

He has during his 60 year long career perfected his music and at the same time never ceased to innovate and move seamlessly between genres. 

In his twenties Mulatu Astatke left his homeland Ethiopia for Wales UK to study engineering. It wasn’t long before he changed path and started studying music in London and New York. Eventually becoming the first African artist to graduate from Berkley Collage of music in Boston.

When he returned to Addis Abeba with his unique knowledge of American jazz, he gained a huge impact when a whole new musical movement was born and he released several now classic albums. With Mulatu at the front, the early 70s opened for a whole new musical collaboration between western funk, soul and jazz with east-african melodies, ethio-jazz was born and Mulatu it’s father.

Mulatu Astatke has performed for sold out venues across the world, and his music has been sampled by artists such as Nas, Damian Marley, K’naan and Cut Chemist. But where most of you might know him from is of course his featuring in movies such as Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, just listen to this:

He recently played at the Selam Festival in Stockholm and described his mission to continue to showcase Africa’s contribution to the international music scene.

Now he brings his ten piece-band to Inkonst, you are welcome to experience what ethio-jazz was designed to do, make the whole body move.

Please note that this is not a seated concert.