Modaina

Tigre Folk music
Tigre Folk music has no nameable origin. It’s more tradition than entertainment. There are folk songs that date so far back, they can be considered oral histories. Certainly, in Eritrea, songs by traditional like folksingers like Abbe and Idris Wed Amir tell stories that often don’t even appear in history books.

From its origins, Tigre music has been the music of the ordinary people. It is community-focused and has rarely enjoyed by rulers. By definition, it is something anyone can understand and in which everyone is welcome to participate. Tigre songs range in subject matter from war, work, love, and economic hardship.

From the onset of Eritrean history, Tigre music has shown up at times when the people needed it most. The earliest Tigre songs rose from tribal sprit to national as “redo redo abai halla et-Adna “Add senniam,” etc. These are songs about struggle and hardship, but are also full of hope. They sprang from the need of the simple people to go to a place in her brain where she knew there was more to the world than the hardships she was facing at the time.

A New Generation
In the ‘60s the Eritrean found himself in struggle. This time, the main concern was not wages or benefits, but the second world war and freedom. Tigre folksingers picked up the legacies of Nafae and others, singing songs about the concerns of the day. Out of this community rose Folk Singers – Abbe Abdella, Echet Henna, Bakitai and others. Their work dealt with everything from love and war to work and play. The 1960s folk revival offered political commentary, sure, but also a powerful promise for change.

By the 1970s, folk music had begun to fade into the background, as the ELF developed the fighting against Ethiopia as the movement saw its biggest triumphs in 1975. Tigre singers continued to persevere. Edris Wad Amir, Ajolai, Alamin Abdulatif, and others wrote songs about relationships and the continuously-evolving political climate.
In the 1980s, Tigre singers focused on the national unity and the struggle against the Ethiopian occupation.
Folk singers may be of an ilk that rarely goes multi-platinum, but their work truly resonates with people of all walks of life, and their legacy is astounding.