"Sing and Sing On will be valuable to those studying Ethiopian culture and to ethnomusicology students, who will find in the book a clear example of applied ethnomusicology. . . . Recommended."

Choice

“Sing and Sing On tells the powerful story of the role musicians have played in safeguarding Ethiopian identity and growing its cultural influence in the decades since the revolution. This is a compelling story that deserves to be told.”
 

Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye

“Shelemay’s deeply researched and sensitive survey of Ethiopia’s ‘sentinel musicians’ reveals the power and presence of music across time and space by profiling activist artists over continents and decades. This is a major contribution to mobility and diaspora studies as well as an eloquent guide to how resilient musicians can shape a scattered society through sound and purpose.”
 

Mark Slobin, author of Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction

“When a senior ethnomusicologist writes about work that has extended over the course of a whole career, it is a gift since ethnography doesn’t often offer such historical depth. When this work has been in both a homeland and a diaspora with citizens of a country/region that has been particularly under duress, it is an even greater gift since it enables us to see how the role of musical performance responds and shapes social conditions across difficult times and multiple places.”

Beverley Diamond, Memorial University of Newfoundland

"A musically and academically engaging project, it's also an important account of personal human suffering, and the art and solidarity that rises out of it." 

Songlines