Roha Band

Taking a modern approach to Ethiopia's traditional music, the Roha Band is Ethiopia's most influential group. In addition to recording on their own, the band has provided instrumental accompaniment for such Ethiopian vocalists as Aster Aweke, Tilahun Gessesse, Mahmoud Ahmed, and Neway Debebe.

Roha Band has influenced the Ethiopian music industry as no other private music band has succeeded in. Perhaps one can safely say that Roha Band means to Ethiopia what “The Beatles” were to Britain.

The establishment of “The Roha Band” draws upon heavily or has a strong relation with the fall outs from the wind down and disintegration of the Ibex and Dahlak bands. Members of these two bands recollect that the reasons for the dissolution of the two bands have to do with the emigration of band members to the Sudan and the US leaving a serious vacuum of skill in the bands.

The Roha Band took it’s name from the historic town of Lalibela. The founding members of the band were Giovanni Rico (Bass guitar), Selam Seyoum (Lead guitar), Fekade Made Meskel (Tenor Sax), all these three hail from Ibex Band and those who joined the Roha Band after the disintegration of the Dahlak Band were Dawit Yifru (Key board and music arranger), Levon Fondachi (vocalist), Tekle Tesfazgi (drummer and vocalist joined the Roha Band leaving their private activities. After the band begun its work, it soon realized that it needed an additional skill and resources. This resulted in the second wave of outsourcing which brought Yonas Degefe (saxophone) and Elias Bekele, Berhanu Yoseph and Ashenafi Awel (both drummers) as well as Yared Teferra (saxophone) in to the fold of the band.