Collection: Mulatu Astatke

Mulatu Astatke (b. 1943, Jimma, Ethiopia) is the architect of Ethio-jazz, a sound he built by threading the pentatonic modes of traditional Ethiopian music through the harmonic language of American jazz and Latin funk. The fusion wasn't accidental. Astatke studied at Trinity College of Music in London and became the first African student at Berklee College of Music in Boston, before recording his earliest albums in New York in 1966. Returning to Addis Ababa in the early 1970s, he documented his most influential work through the local Amha Records label, sessions layering vibraphone and percussion over coiled grooves that felt simultaneously ancient and utterly modern. Those recordings were largely unavailable outside Ethiopia until the Éthiopiques reissue series brought them to international ears in the late 1990s, and they remain some of the most sought-after vinyl in the world. Collectors will find key Éthiopiques volumes alongside Strut catalogue titles from his later collaborations with The Heliocentrics and Melbourne's Black Jesus Experience.