The Midnight Sessions: How Ethiopia's Electronic Music Pioneer Defied the Derg

In the 1980s, making music in Addis Ababa after dark was an act of defiance. Under the Derg regime's military curfew, a teenage Teodros Mekonnen — known as Teddy Mak — would slip into the Wabi Shebelle Hotel restaurant, set up a synthesizer and drum machine, and record through the night, delivering flawless continuous takes before dawn on scarce, expensive tape. One wrong note meant starting over. One wrong move could mean something far worse.

The Marxist Derg had condemned individual expression and artistic innovation as Western imperialist tools. Creating music that did not serve the regime was not merely discouraged — it was dangerous. Yet inside that hotel, Teddy Mak was quietly laying the sonic foundation of what would become modern Ethiopian popular music.

Forty years later, those sessions are getting their due. Music publisher Muziqawi, under Selam Ethiopia, will reissue the historic album "Teodros Mekonen with his Organ" on Oct. 2, 2026, as a remastered double vinyl, celebrating a career of over 1,500 compositions and marking a broader effort to rescue Ethiopian recordings from decades of neglect, piracy, and decay.

"We realized that if we didn't do something, the industry might never improve for artists," said Samuel Mulugeta, Country Director of Selam Ethiopia. The preservation challenge is considerable. Research by Dr. Timkehet Teffera documents how Ethiopia lacked high-quality recording studios, duplicators, and technical expertise throughout the era. Early recordings survived on fragile reel-to-reel tapes held by radio stations or private collectors, exposed to humidity, political instability, and the total absence of copyright protections. Serious digital preservation did not begin until the late 1990s, through the global Éthiopiques CD series. The upcoming vinyl reissue is significant precisely because it rescues a rare one-take recording that survived against considerable odds.

To preview the release, Muziqawi has issued the track "Lebesh Kabashin" — Put on Your Robe — featuring vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. The track captures the album's defining quality: ancient pentatonic scales, including the Anchi Hoye and Tizita modes, fused with early rhythm machines and synthesizers. Dr. Timkehet's research identifies the groove — hypnotic, repetitive basslines and keyboard patterns anchoring traditional melodies — as the definitive heartbeat of modern Ethiopian music, and it is audible throughout.

Teddy Mak's path to the Wabi Shebelle began at home. His father, an Ethiopian Airlines pilot, brought a Rudi Barzon piano back from Germany and hired an Indian instructor to teach Teddy and his brother the fundamentals of harmony and solfège. Teddy resisted the structured approach from the start. "Every time I sit at the piano, I just don't want to go to the notes," he recalls. "I just want to play something that I'm hearing." He turned instead to his father's collection of jazz, soul, and Black American records, absorbing influences far outside the classroom.

In his mid-teens, Teddy and guitarist Bibi Shibabaw formed a school band called Easy Busy, rehearsing at a club owned by Mulatu Astatke — the Father of Ethio-Jazz — who offered mentorship and space. The manager of the Wabi Shebelle heard them play and hired them on the spot. Renamed the De Afrique Band, these teenagers stepped into a professional world previously occupied by musicians decades their senior.

The Golden Years of private hotel bands and artistic freedom ended abruptly with the 1974 revolution. The Derg banned popular music from the airwaves, shut down nightlife, and forced musicians into composing military propaganda. Those who resisted faced censorship, imprisonment, torture, or execution. The De Afrique Band navigated this by operating as an underground house band, backing legendary vocalists including Aster Aweke, Alemayehu Eshete, and Mahmoud Ahmed. It was during this period — hemmed in on all sides — that "Teodros Mekonen with his Organ" was captured in a single evening, a synthesizer humming quietly in a hotel restaurant while soldiers patrolled outside.

Producer and multi-instrumentalist Exodus Getahun, who began his career in the church, credits Teddy's early audacity with reshaping how Ethiopian music is arranged. The synthesizer textures and brass arrangements Teddy introduced to a conservative society became the template contemporary artists still draw from. "To remain impactful after forty years, you must never stop exploring and creating new things," Exodus said.

This article is based on a report by The Reporter Ethiopia.