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As Ethiopia experienced political turmoil and the country Engulfed in civil war Zeleke traveled as a refugee in the early 80s with his brother and friends to the United States to pursue his music and college education. In the US, they created one of the most successful music partnerships with Ziggy Marley and the melody makers; whose father bob Marley had a deep affinity for Ethiopia as well as Africa.
Zeleke and his band dallol were signed to Bob Marley’s tuff gong records and released few singles in Jamaica and the hit album land of the genesis distributed worldwide. Produced by Mrs. Rita Marley and Dallol band. The band joined the melody makers and produced two global hit albums, conscious party, and one bright day, touring the world many times and winning two Grammy awards, and selling millions for both albums.
Beginning with Dallol’s land of the genesis and the album’s Conscious party and One bright day produced with Ziggy Marley, Zeleke has seen the world connect to a blend of African and Ethiopian rhythm with Jamaican reggae. Introducing a global world beat sound that has enormous universal appeal. Zeleke’s music-Wich unites Marley’s vision of one Love and his own vision of universal peace flows with many languages, in each song combining Amharic and other native tongues of Ethiopia, with English and Jamaican patois, Zeleke’s sound is as unique as his music and his background Zeleke has continued to forge ahead with his own unique sound and message to the world.
Listen to the dance rhythms of eastern Africa, on his solo projects come to me in 1996, out of Africa 2000, and Selam recorded live in the wild hare club in Chicago 2007. You can transport yourself with his music to any destination club in the world. For the last 22 years, Zeleke has traveled back to Ethiopia where his message of unity and tolerance has made him a Household name in eastern Africa. Together with his longtime friend Ziggy Marley and his brother Addis Gessese, they have organized a charity organization called one love Africa, building thirty (30) primary(Elementry) schools for underprivileged African children in rural parts of Ethiopia.
Recently he has documented the success of these schools, to which some of the first rounds of students have graduated from college and have been employed by government offices, and Private Sector Company, and some have started their own business. While in Chicago, Zeleke established deeper roots there and became a founder of the wildly successful. The wild hare reggae club. There you could experience Zeleke’s love of music and love of entertaining with his world beat sound. Zeleke and his band along with the musician relationship he has established all over the world his sound millions have experienced.
He was the CEO of the company for over 25 years and the company grew from an initial investment of $50,000 Dollars in the mid-’80s to acquiring the building in 1991 for $250,000 Re-architecting the building in 1994, again in 1998, and in 2006, the value of the building continued to grow while the club became a destination in Chicago and the USA creating a building value of over $4,000,000(four million) Dollars, in 2010. Zeleke’s skill in developing new programming and booking larger bands grow the club on average 11.5% for over five years, while the building continued to appreciate. The club becomes known all over the world with revenues reaching $2,000,000 (two million) by the end of 2008.
As the world experienced an economic downtown, Zeleke made an important decision in 2011 that would be life changing. He sold his shares in the Chicago based wild hare to return to his homeland Ethiopia where he is reconstructing his personal property into a luxury apartment building partnering with Ato Girma Gelaw, CEO of Bamakon Engineering co. the residential property is located in the center of Addis Ababa on the bole road. Given his hospitality business background and his college education in business and music management, Zeleke chose to embark on a whole new vision, establishing a new growth career in his homeland.
The thousands who attended his last weeklong concerts at on wild hare in Chicago in 2011 vowed to come to his new home. Ethiopia and see him perform on the mega-concert he has been producing thereby ensuring the new venture will be an immediate success. The 1st such concert was organized by Zeleke on June 6th, 2017.at the Ghion hotel compound featuring his good friend Damain Marley and a line up of local bands that atracted 10,000 people on a Tuesday night breaking the record for a weekday concert during a state of emergency. He also performed an Ethiopian new year concert at Meskel square in sept11,2019 with multiple bands that attracted 50,000 people.
Continuing in his philanthropic and civic contribution, he was engaged in putting up the Bob Marley statue at the the Bob Marley square on the Addis Ababa ring road, in 2015, with a free reggae concert at the youth athletics academy grounds by the statue for 10,000 attendees. After the 2015 national election when the political unrest erupted across the nation Zeleke joined few academicians and intellectuals to initiate a dialogue forum between the ruling EPRDF party and all the opposition parties.
The purpose of the dialogue was to create a platform for all the political players in the country and abroad to resolve their differences through dialogue and get to the next national election to have a truly democratic and free election for the public to decide who should run the government with a non-violent and civilized reform to the existing platform without the center collapsing. By talking to most of the parties and the ruling party, there was a dialogue forum started at the parliament that lasted for about nine months, where Zeleke was asked to be an observer by all the participants.
At the same time, the prime minister resigned, and the ruling party EPRDF went into a three-week-long conference and elected a new chairman that resulted in the election of prime minister Abey Ahmed. With his election almost all the dialogue agendas and many more were answered rapidly and the new reform was initiated. In 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic was 1st announced Zeleke joined with few artists human rights activists and businesspeople to form a committee to assist in informing the public on creating awareness in prevention methods and create awareness.
The committee did a lot of the public announcement on television, radio and put up billboards around the city announcing about wearing a face mask, not shaking hands, and social distancing. From the long time relationship he has developed in Chicago Zeleke contacted northwestern university institute for global health to solicit PPEs for health care workers who are on the front line and solicited a donation of few thousand pieces of PPEs from the university and donated it to the Yeka Kotebe covid treatment hospital in October 2020.
Zeleke is working on establishing a destination entertainment & business center in Addis Ababa, that will include a convention center, a night club, a cultural restaurant and an art training center for the youth to elevate the entertainment industry to a global standard. Ethiopia will enjoy a growth in tourism and entertainment like never before. Nothing pleases Zeleke more than coming full circle with a new chapter which began with his roots in Ethiopia
One Love
Zeleke
Gessese
