TED Community » Meklit Hadero
About Me
“I’ve always felt at home with movement,” murmurs Meklit Hadero in the same gentle voice with which she traces her songs’ supple melodies. “All of us are made of many places.” And she should know: Born in Ethiopia, raised in the U.S. and nurtured by San Francisco’s richly diverse arts scene, this acclaimed singer embodies worlds. Joining her soul-filled phrasing to a songwriter’s craft, her music’s influences range wide – from the jazz and soul favorites she grew up on; to the hip-hop and art-rock she loves; to folk traditions from the Americas and her forebears’ East African home. But this singular artist’s sound, drawn of multitudes, is hers alone.
Emerging from her adopted hometown of San Francisco, Meklit erupted to national notice with the 2010 release of “On a Day Like this…” on Porto Franco Records. Hailed by Filter magazine for “[combining] New York jazz with West Coast folk and African flourishes, all bound together by Hadero’s beguiling voice,” her full-length debut — which also garnered feature-stories on its maker from NPR, PBS and National Geographic — brought Meklit’s music to a whole new audience. It also announced the arrival, as the San Francisco Chronicle has put it, of “an artistic giant in the early stages.”
The journey that brought Meklit to this stage included many stops. Born in Ethiopia in the early 1980s, she grew up in Iowa, New York, and Florida. After studying political science at Yale, she moved to San Francisco and became immersed in the city’s thriving arts scene. “She sings of fragility, hope and self-empowerment, and exudes all three,” wrote a Chronicle reporter after witnessing an early performance in the city’s Mission District. “What’s irresistible, above all, is her cradling, sensuous, gentle sound. She is stunning.” She hasn’t looked back.
Named a TED Global Fellow in 2009, Meklit has served as an artist-in-residence at New York University, the De Young Museum, and the Red Poppy Art House. Meklit has also completed musical commissions for the San Francisco Foundation and for theatrical productions staged by Brava! For Women in the Arts. She is the founder of the Arba Minch Collective, a group of Ethiopian artists in diaspora devoted to nurturing ties to their homeland through collaborating with both traditional and contemporary artists there.
Now touring in support of her debut album while nurturing plans for her next, along with numerous side-projects, Meklit is gracing renowned festivals and concert-halls worldwide. Most at home not in one place but many, she’s an artist leaping from stage to stage before our eyes.
- Location:
- United States, San Francisco, CA
- Current organization:
- The Nile Project
- Current role:
- Singer/Co-Founder
- Gender:
- Female
- Areas of expertise:
- Music as a sphere of influence, the arts
- I am:
- Artist, Brainstormer, Change Agent, Connector, Event planner, Explorer, Global soul, Musician, Performer, World traveler
- Associations:
- Arba Minch Collective :: Founding Member, CopperWire - Singer/Songwriter, Mission Arts and Performance Project :: Curator, Artist in Residence - New York University
- Languages:
- English
- My website links:
- Meklit Hadero, Nile Project, CopperWire
- Universities:
- Yale University
- TED conferences attended:
- TED2013, TEDGlobal 2012, TED2012, TEDWomen, TEDGlobal 2009
More About Me
I'm passionate about
music :: the arts :: bringing people together around a table full of good food :: the expanding concept of diaspora :: interdisciplinary thinking :: kindness :: cross-cultural pollination ::
Talk to me about
ecological and cultural diversity :: the first song you ever really loved :: international development :: outer space ::
People don't know that I'm good at
Telling jokes. I've got a few really good ones (though I'm always looking for more). Ask me to tell one about the whales......
My TED Story
I was a 2009 TED Global Fellow, and am now also a 2012 TED Senior Fellow.
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A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A comment on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
In Ethiopia, there is a type of artist called Azmari's. They are poets and musicians who know thousands of traditional songs and poems, and are superb musical and lyrical improvisors. When you go to an Azmari-beit (the name of the place you go to see them), they sing for you, often a mixture of praise songs and songs that outright make fun of you. And it is hilarious and fun. But they tell the truth about what they see. At the same time, they are generally on the margins of society, almost outcast. Yet, they are the ones who can tell the truth in public. I feel that this is almost the mythological artist..... It makes me think of Cassandra in Greek mythology. She has the gift of sight, but she will never be believed or taken seriously. People go to Azmari's to hear the truth, but then wont be respect them in the light of day. There's a tragedy about it.
There are of course artists who are made famous and become enormously wealthy. But those are such a small percentage, and the fame comes with different pressures about what can and cannot be said easily.
Thoughts?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
A comment on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
http://www.urban.org/publications/411311.html
A reply on Conversation: What is the role of artists in shaping culture and a healthy society?
I'm always curious to know more about who the artists were that played that role in your lives.
Salim mentioned both a moment (the concert in London), and the people (team of young artists in the film "Muktir Gaan").
Who were those artists for you?
For me there are all kinds of levels of it.... There are personal friends like Marcus Shelby, a West Coast jazzmaster who interprets the lives of Harriet Tubman and MLK through epic librettos, and Quique Cruz, a Chilean multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker who was imprisoned by the Chilean government in the dictatorship times there and has made gorgeous music of healing around that experience. To people I have never met, but who have deeply influenced me, like the sculptor James Turrell, who works with light and lifts everyone who walks into his hall-like open sky pieces.