Addis Ken

Preceded by a lively geopolitical controversy linked to alleged funding, Abate Berihun's performance was the most anticipated and feared event of the St. Louis International Jazz Festival. On Baya Square, the Ethiopian artist and his Addis Ken Project swept away the tensions to leave only the magic of the notes. The story of a therapeutic concert.

He was the most commented guest of the festival, even before he had set foot on stage. Abate Berihun and his Addis Ken Project closed the St. Louis International Jazz Festival on Baya Square, with a power that silenced all the controversies. The music, relentless, has given its verdict.

In the days leading up to the closing concert, the rumour had swelled. Voices had been raised to denounce the alleged involvement of the Israeli embassy in the financing of the festival, casting a political shadow over Abate Berihun's arrival. In a charged international context, the controversy had found a sensitive echo among part of the Senegalese public, quick not to dissociate art from geopolitics.

Abate Berihun, for his part, has chosen the silence of the greats. Stoic in the face of controversies, the Ethiopian artist did not respond to any provocation. Better still, he has transformed this pressure into fuel. On stage, there was no more controversy, no more embassy, no more geopolitics. There was a man, his band, and music from the highlands of Ethiopia to conquer the banks of the Senegal River.

The Addis Ken Project resonated with the quiet strength of an Ethiopian musical tradition that is unaccountable to anyone. The ancestral rhythms, the bewitching harmonies, the emotionally charged brass instruments: everything combined to produce a show of rare intensity. The audience at Place Baya, who sometimes came with reservations, quickly fell under the influence of the stage. The bodies followed, the faces relaxed.

It would have been a shame to deprive Saint-Louis of such a spectacle. Because beyond the musical performance, Abate Berihun offered a lesson in dignity: that of letting art speak where words divide. Music has no passport. She does not have a visa. It crosses the borders that men set up and those that polemics fabricate.

The curtain fell on this festival under the best auspices. Saint-Louis has once again proved that it knows how to welcome the world without losing its soul. As for Abate Berihun, he sublimated the pressure. Until the last note.