90’s Legendary Emcees Sample a Legendary Habesha

By: Henok Elias

I am not the first one to point this out – shoutout to Sebastien Francois at Zumic. If you listened to hip-hop in the 1990’s, or you use Spotify and its ilk to pretend that you’ve been hip for two decades, you know who Erick Sermon, Method Man, (the Oxford comma lives) and Redman are. An introduction would be superfluous and extra. But, I didn’t even know who Erick Sermon was until The Game released “My Life” in 2008 and said, “I ain’t no preacher, but here’s my Erick Sermon”. Open another tab and do terse internet research to feed your curt attention span, then return to reading this article, if you don’t know these men. Sermon’s song “Clutch” was released this past Summer, but the music video just dropped at the end of September. Some samples are used as an undertone. This is not the case in “Clutch”. I hold this truth to be self-evident, that these men sampled noted Habesha music man ዓለምዐየሁ እሸተ (alemayehu ishete), and they were not the first to do so.

If you follow the Zumic link above you can find a Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def aka Black Dante track called “Stay Forever Alive” that samples the same ዓለምዐየሁ. Since Oh No’s, Madlib’s brother, fingerprints are on this joint, I want to also point you in the direction of Oh No’s 2009 “ETHIOPIUM”. As its title hints at, this an addictive instrumental-only album of Habesha samples mixed with hip-hop. Is there anything that is more me? Is there anything that is more you? Let’s continue down this musical rabbit hole. ገብርኤል ቴዎድሮስ (gebreyl teywodros or how the government spells it Gabriel Teodros) is a diaspora Habesha who put lyrics to Oh No’s “ETHIOPIUM”, and calls his concoction “Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape”.  Don’t be shy to click the link, it’s a free mixtape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Exy__D7D4.