Meklit

Ethiopian-born Meklit Hadero, a singer and songwriter shaped by jazz, folk, and soul, performs in both English and Amharic. She entered the world in Addis Ababa, then escaped the prolonged unrest that followed Ethiopia’s 1974 revolution when her physician parents brought the family to the United States. Her childhood unfolded across Iowa and Brooklyn, where she participated in choirs and first encountered the recordings of Billie Holiday during her teenage years. Although she completed a political science degree at Yale, Hadero never set music aside and ultimately established herself within San Francisco’s thriving arts community, studying voice and guitar there. She found an artistic base at the Red Poppy Art House, began presenting her material, and joined guitarist Todd Brown to form Nefasha Ayer, a band drawing on jazz, roots, and African traditions. Her first solo album, On a Day Like This…, appeared in 2010. Two years later she issued the full-band project Meklit & Quinn, recorded with singer-songwriter Quinn Deveaux. In 2013 she returned to the studio alongside her quartet and an expanded roster of guest musicians, resulting in the album We Are Alive, which Six Degrees released in spring 2014.