Kidane-Diva “Come See the Other Me,” from We Sing the Tizita to Unbury Our Dead

“Come See the Other Me!”¹

By the time I made it back, Kidane was serving Mohamed and the kids hastily scrambled eggs. They had a good laugh at my expense. She went to the kitchen to toast some bread only to hear her curse so loudly that we all went quiet. Mohamed asked what the matter was, and she marched and furiously placed a small loaf of bread with no crust on the table. Then I remembered Mohamed and I high the night before, the munchies demanding something sweet and the only thing we could find was bread. Mohamed had insisted he was going to make me the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich – it involved eating toasted crunchy crust. It was the best P&J sandwich I had ever had but we had not anticipated the fall out. The kids did not mind though, so it balanced out in the end.

It was time to leave for the concert – the set up and rehearsals were going to eat up the rest of the day. The kids were also eager to play football with their father, so after quick casual goodbyes, we were on our way. The same cab driver that dropped us off two days ago was waiting for us at the end of the painful, now that I was invalid with blistered feet, long trek. But I had to make it.

“Shall I stop at the other place?” He asked as soon we got in.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What other place?” I asked her.

“You will see,” she answered and they both laughed.

The cab driver’s name I now learned was Mustafa, a Somali living in Addis and I guess until he had seen you twice, he maintained his cover. Xenophobia against Somali people anytime the war in the Ogaden flared up was a constant fear. We spoke about xenophobia all over the continent, South Africa, Libya, Egypt, it seemed Pan-Africanism was in spirit and not in practice. We talked about Al-Shabab and how the Islamic Court Unions might have done some good were it not for Ethiopia and the United States. And how now Kenya had finally invaded Somalia “officially.”

The conversation moved on to the mundane, the cost of bread, petrol and so on until we were back in Addis where he drove to an expensive looking building a few hundred yards from the African Union headquarters. I thought we were picking up someone but we drove to the back where he punched a few keys into a pad and large gates opened up to a garage. I asked Kidane again where we were going. She simply smiled. He parked his taxi next to a long Mercedes Benz that looked all the more new next to his Oldsmobile. We entered an elevator where he once again punched a code and we took the long ride up to the top floor to pick up whom I now was sure was a good friend, or Kidane’s lover.

When it turned out he had the key to an immaculately furnished penthouse apartment and there was no one in, I started to suspect that they were lovers. They went to respective rooms. The suspense was killing my tabloid senses so I started looking for clues – there were none. I looked at the magazines and newspapers on the glass coffee table. Before I could open the latest Ebony Magazine with barely dressed hips thrust into the camera, Beyoncé on its cover, Kidane, and shortly thereafter Mustafa, returned.

Only it was not Mustafa and Kidane, it was the Diva and her bodyguard. The Diva came over to where I was standing frozen, mouth open, at once understanding what was before me and at the same time as confused as I had ever been. She was dressed in a long white tight evening gown, a light shawl covered with the Ethiopian flag colors, green, yellow and red wrapped around her bare shoulders, her long muscular neck naked. In white sneakers, she was a picture of a quiet sexiness.

Mustafa was dressed in a tuxedo and where before he had seemed thin and effeminate, even in his several sizes bigger shirts and trousers, the Mustafa that stood before me was a guy you did not want to mess with, his chest straining the shirt buttons as he adjusted a gun in his shoulder holster, put on his jacket and checked himself in the mirror to make sure that the gun was concealed. I recognized him – he was the man I had almost run into back at the ABC when I was leaving the Diva’s dressing room.

“What is going on? I saw you at the ABC,” I said to him.

He shrugged and smiled.

“What’s going?” I asked the Diva.

She went over to the stack of magazines and newspapers, took one and threw it at me so that it fell by my feet. And that is when I saw The National Inquisitor headline: “The Singer on Top: Drugs, Sex and competition in Nairobi” – the piece in which I had lied in order to bulldoze the moneymen at The National Inquisitor to send me to Ethiopia. If the Diva had it, then others surely had seen it.

“You are not the only one with secrets,” she said with a laugh when I started trying to explain.

They walked to the door and for a moment I thought they would leave me behind.

“Come,” she commanded and I followed them, less a journalist and more like a boy with a crush caught lying. Mustafa flashed me a sympathetic, even friendly smile.

What had I been thinking? And why was she letting me carry on? Whatever the case, I was going to give my readers a good story, regardless of the truth. I mean, had I written only about the Diva of Nairobi, would that have been the truth? Or if I wrote only about Kidane, wife and dutiful mother – would that have been the truth? In a world of multiple covers and faces, only a fool would think the truth was the first face one saw. In journalism school, we used to have drunken debates in the same parties where I played my one Malaika song about objective reporting. Ever the radicals, we would agree there was nothing like objective reporting.

But we had it all wrong because we placed the burden of objectivity on the journalists who in turn bring their biases to the story, to be piled on by the biases of the editor dictated by whatever corporation owned the paper. But we always assumed the subject of the reportage was objectively solid and stable. Well, what I was learning, or rather seeing, confirmed that both the journalist and the subject were in constant motion. And if both of you stopped and talked over a cup of coffee or a beer, that would be a sliver of the truth at that point in time. We had been applying the uncertainty principle to the wrong party; both the journalist and the subject were in constant motion.

Kidane and the Diva, Mustafa the taxi driver and Mustafa the dangerous looking bodyguard in a tuxedo, my many selves and The National Inquisitor reporter. All that was beside the point – the question was why Kidane was letting me see her many truths or lies and whether the other musicians would do the same. I was now all the more intrigued to a point of testing my sanity by her.

*******

The Addis Ababa Stadium & Millennium Hall – magnificence on steroids – a country conscious of its image as the poster child of development. In many ways the stadium itself was performing for the TV cameras, the blog writers and tweeters because each story, whether it’s about a football game, a political speech or music performance has to begin with its vastness, filled with 60,000 people all here to watch, listen and commune. 60,000 people in one space produce electricity, current charged with anticipation, and in the constant loud indecipherable murmur of talking and singing voices.

She is here to do a benefit concert for soldiers, veterans, families, friends and anyone who cares to show up. It is free, so it’s 60,000 people and probably another five thousand standing outside the stadium, not to mention those watching from home. Backstage, the Diva standing there surrounded by tech people, journalists, fans who had won backstage passes, the Diva surrounded by the machinery that produces the music we consume looks so small, in danger of being crushed by all of it. She smiles, signs this, takes a photo, kisses someone on the cheek, shares a joke with an old friend. I look again – she is not in danger of being crushed by it all, she is in control, the skillful surfer who seems to be in danger of being swallowed by a massive wave but triumphs each time. Every now and then she looks at Mustafa, the leash will keep her tied safely to her surfboard if the rising waters were to push her off.

The anticipation builds; the band, all men dressed in army jackets over khaki pants and army boots are playing as if on a loop, repeating the phrase so that each time they return to where the musician should make an entrance, the crowd yells for The Diva. She calls me over and the waters respectfully part to let me through and she whispers, “Come see the other me.” She smiles at Mustafa and he walks me over to a small VIP section and then hurries back. I can hear and feel the ocean of 60,000 people behind me. I am no longer a journalist – I am one of them.

I look around and see large screen monitors set up all around the stadium show her making her way to the front of the stage, Mustafa in front of her. The look on her face, triumph mixed with a self-conscious smile that suggests she knows how good she is play on her face. The Diva – Kidane transfigured into the Diva – walks onto the stage. The united horn section goes into high gear, the drums, bass and keyboards follow and a storm of dancing song brews. She walks up and down the stage, she owns it – she stops every now and then, says something and playfully wags a finger at the crowd – I have no idea what the words mean, but I know enough now not to worry about what words mean but what her voice says – she is telling the men to be careful of her, or of others like her, or telling the women to be wary of men like the ones she is pointing at.

Call and response with the band, the horn section coming in slightly before she talks to the men, more like sings to them with the band all quiet and then as her voice gets angrier yet playful the band comes in. The drums set the tone – a few angry rat-a-tats as the horn section, the keyboards and the Diva remain silent – and then her, just her, her voice speaking to the 60,000 people comes in, magnified by the image of the beautiful lone woman on stage and we all go wild, the band comes in – and we are hungry for more.

She paces up and down stage, her voice whipping up the band into a frenzy – and then she does a simple gesture that almost causes a riot – the band comes to a stop, there is only silence. She runs to the center of the stage and takes off her suit jacket – and then runs her fingers over the buttons of her white shirt, pretending to undo each one of them. The roar of a turned-on crowd – the band intervenes but not before letting one of the trumpet players talk to her – his trumpet approving, asking for more. It is in a word the sexiest, most erotic performance I have ever witnessed and I feel things in me stirring, made all the more intense by a turned-on, massive crowd. And then she moves on to a few more disco-music like tunes – we dance and dance, people sing along to her popular songs until their voices are hoarse. This is not Kidane on stage – this is the Diva and I feel I understand her even though I have no words to express this understanding. The Diva and her all-male band – she thrives, loves being in control of all of them, all their macho selves held and sewn together by her voice.

Almost two hours into the concert – a song ends – she bows her head, and lifting only her eyes so that it looks like she is about to charge the crowd, she says, “I believe in God.” I expect her to say she believes in the devil as well – but this is a different crowd – soldiers do not need to know the devil, the trenches are hell – they need to believe that they are fighting tyranny for democracy. This group of men yet to be wounded or killed, yet knowing that for some of them death is certain, and those who had survived and lost a limb or faith, and the relatives of those who died, they all need hope. They do not need to be reminded of the devil, they need to be reminded of God, of hope.

The band leaves the stage in silence. Mustafa comes and hands me an envelope. “She wants you to have this,” he says as he sits by me. A choir dressed in blue comes in and standing in front of them is a krar player, short, and overweight. I open the envelope – it’s a Tizita, in Amharic and in English. It’s all written down by hand. I realize it was the Diva who has done the translation.

The krar starts off with a solo as she sways on the side, now more self-aware. She waits a little bit more and says something that Mustafa translates for me as 60,000 people get on their feet, yell, clap and shush each other. “It’s a Tizita by Bezawork. She wants to pay homage to one of the greatest Tizita singers of all time,” he translates. A few reps by the krar player, she closes her eyes and brings the microphone to her mouth, keeps swaying from side to side as if waiting for a cue that only she knows – I remember this from her performance at the ABC. The Krar player’s fingers at times a blur, at other times picking up one note after the other, keeps nodding in her direction, as if telling her, I am waiting for you, enter now.

60,000 people still on their feet waiting, and the waiting itself feels like a song. The choir sways with her waiting. The band members taking a break have also come out to the sides of the stage, a little worry and pride etched on their faces. And then whatever she was waiting for, perhaps a perfect balance between the krar and the loud anticipation from the crowd comes to pass. Her voice, hoarse from all the high charged singing earlier is cracked a bit but it adds to the music. I finally allow myself to look at the lyrics – they are in Amharic but I follow them listening to her voice not for words and their meaning, but as an instrument trying to tell us something. What does it matter what the words mean? I listen.

Hiiwot zora zora, TeQuma tizitan

Hiiwot zora zora, TeQuma tizitan

Dirron ayto madneQ, yesekenu eletta

Dirron ayto madneQ, yesekenu eletta

Deggun mastawesha, baynorewu tizita

Deggun mastawesha, baynorewu tizita

Negen baltemegnat, sewu ………

Negen baltemegnat, sewu ………

The cadence of her voice relaxed, the voice I know to be hers – it’s almost like she is having a chat with the Tizita – her voice…the word I have been looking for comes to me – her androgynous voice rising falling with the bass and the krar, drawing out sorrow as if from a well – and when she repeats Tizita, Tizita, I hear split images of Bedele and her, alive and young and vital, the tragedy of what awaits their happiness in the horizon. Love and its mischief, it came and left, her voice the instrument cries.

Tizita bicha newu, yelib guadegna

Tizita bicha newu, yelib guadegna

Letamemech hiiwot, meTSnagna medagna

Letamemech hiiwot, meTSnagna medagna

The way her voice quivers, life has become unbearable, cannot be lived as is and something has to give…

Eyayun malefin, lemedelign aynein

Eyayun malefun, lemedelign aynein

Eyayu malefun, lemedelign aynein

What is she pleading for and whom is she imploring? Here I got lost in my own thoughts. The Diva, I know she can hit any note she wants – she had done it with me, just yesterday with her kids running around the yard, the sun that had just set an hour before glowing through the clouds. But this evening she is holding back, and where her voice takes command and soars, she flicks her hand up in the air as if to hold herself back, and she lets the krar play on eight or so beats before coming back to the song.

That gesture again and I put the lyrics down. I start to watch each time she raises her hand – the gesture elides over something. I watch hard enough to notice that she did that to pull herself back. The Corporal had done it, the holding back, at the ABC but not to the same effect as Kidane. We had been angry at his holding back because we wanted a bit of that flagellation that comes with facing one’s demons – catharsis. But Kidane is getting rewarded – the crowd going crazy each time. The choir comes and completes the gesture by giving depth as opposed to height through a solo.

That gesture again! And then it hits me; the crowd was going crazy each time she held back. It was so simple it makes me want to cry. The reason why some preachers are better than others, or some poets better than others – they merely suggest and your fears or wants at their most absolute manifest themselves. I could tell myself she was performing – but performance as I understood it was about show, fireworks – performances were not supposed to be what Kidane was doing, merely suggesting, being content to suggest and let us do her work. I look at the lyrics.

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro

The choir comes in again, this time allowing each voice to be soothing yet almost distinct – I can hear twenty voices, all of them with something to say singing together – this loss, it’s ours, it’s not to be feared, it’s to be embraced. It is in the loss that they find life, they play with their voices. And the Diva is somewhere in their voices; her voice strong and vulnerable, almost lost but at the same time carrying them all. And then they slow down and let the Krar take the lead until it too slows down and the song and performance ends. The stage is rushed. I expect Mustafa to jump into action. He shrugs when I look at him.

“She is safest here – no one would dare touch her,” he says to me.

I look again. Her fans are not rushing the stage to take a piece of her, to take a memento home; they are hurling love and kisses at her. Others rush and stand at a respectful distance – they just want to be close to her. So I ask him if he can translate as I ask the people who have overrun our little VIP section some questions, or rather one question – What is the Tizita to you? I pick the people randomly.

A schoolboy still in uniform – it fills me with pride.

A soldier – it makes death feel warmer. I ask him through Mustafa to explain a little bit more. Death, we are all going to die – me, maybe in a war. The way she sings it? It makes me know I am part of life – and I will be remembered even after I am gone.

A couple that wouldn’t be able to hide their love for each other even if they tried – If I was to lose her, I would kill myself the man says.

And if he died, I would go on living – I would find the strength to live for the both of us – she says, laughs, and they try to make their way to the Diva.

An old white woman, high as a kite and dressed like a 1960s hippie – The Tizita is a mirror that does not like one single thing. I ask her to explain but she pinches me on my cheek playfully, like Miriam would do, and says, live long enough son.

An old man with his son – my daughter died in the liberation war – I find comfort knowing I will join her soon.

The son/brother – The Tizita is the blood in our soil – the Tizita makes it boil. I ask him to explain and he says he has no words beyond that.

Mustafa slaps me on my back – “And you my friend, what does the Tizita mean to you?”

I am taken aback by the question but also surprised by how readily the answer rolls off my tongue.

“Just how little of life I understand,” I answer.

“And you?” I ask him.

He looks over at the Diva and I am almost afraid of what he will say.

“I would kill or die for her,” he answers.