Tche Belew – Hailu Mergia and the Walias

From Wikipedia: Hailu Mergia (Amharic: ኃይሉ መርጊያ, romanized: ḫayilu merigīya) is an Ethiopian keyboardist, now based in Washington D.C., United States. He is best known for his role in the Walias Band in the 1970s, one of the most significant groups in Ethiopia’s “golden age” of music. Walias Band (sometimes spelled Wallias Band; Amharic: ዋሊያስ ባንድ) were an Ethiopian jazz and funk band active from the early 1970s until the early 1990s. Formed by members of the Venus Band, Walias backed up many prominent singers with a hard polyrhythmic funk sound influenced by western artists like King Curtis, Junior Walker and Maceo Parker. In 1977 they recorded one of the few albums of Ethiopian instrumental music in collaboration with vibraphonist Mulatu Astatke, whose role as a bandleader and composer was also a major influence on Ethiopian popular music.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hailu_Mergia , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walias_Band