CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Because taste leads to knowledge, I enjoy fair familiarity with the West African music that’s second cousin to rock ’n’ roll and none with its distant relatives in North Africa and the Middle East. But where knowledge ends, taste rules. Ahmed is a singer of indubitable authority, and maybe an album of the “many standards” he’s contributed to “modern Ethiopian music” would expand my horizons.
May 1, 1987