Minyeshu

Minyeshu Kifle Tedla (Amharic: ምንይሹ ክፍሌ ተድላ) is an Ethiopian singer and dancer. She lives in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. She is a member of the band Chewata.

Biography Born in the Eastern Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa to Amhara parents, Minyeshu moved to the capital Addis Ababa at the age of 9. She visited a live concert for the first time with a friend when she was 14. Right after, she auditioned and was hired as a singer in a band. At age 16 She was accepted as a dancer in the Ethiopian National Theatre. Her parents disapproved her ambitions to become an artist, and she soon began living with her aunt instead.

As part of the National Theatre, she toured abroad. With the arrival of the new EPRDF government in 1991, the board of the National Theatre was fired and for political reasons censorship was imposed on certain performances. Minyeshu described her experience in an interview ‘‘the board was replaced by people who didn't know what they were doing; a terrible situation where we as artists were degraded to puppets of the regime’’ She sang in different intercultural collaborations: with Zoumana Diarra and Anton Goudsmit in the project Maliblu, and with Marlène Dorcén en Talike in Perles d'Amour. At the 2007 New Year's concert Minyeshu performed with the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

She combines traditional elements from the Horn of Africa with influences from modern western music. Some of her songs are based on the rhythms of Eskista, an Ethiopian ‘‘schoulder dance.’’ Her mother tongue is Amharic, but she also sings in other African languages such as Sidama. When asked in an interview whether she can sings all those languages smoothly, she answered; ‘‘I can really only speak Amharic, but not all my friends are Amharas, so the other languages are translated for me, and i enjoy performing songs in their languages as well.’’ In the summer of 2013 during the project 'Azalai' Minyeshu performed in the Melkweg, Amsterdam Open Air, the Sfinks Festival in Antwerpen, the Exit Festival in Novi Sad and Sziget Festival in Budapest.

In 2023 she appeared with her new 11 piece band at the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Albums

With Chewata: / Minyeshu

2002: Meba

2008: Dire Dawa 2013: Black Ink 2018: Daa Dee 2022 Netsa https://www.arcmusic.co.uk/blog/netsa-minyeshu.html