Saba Tewelde knew what she wanted. She wanted to sing. Today, she performs her own type of music with her band Injera Soul. Without a formal education in music, she learnt by doing and she is pulling a dedicated crowd of fans. In a brief interview with AFRITOPC, she speaks about herself and her lyrics. 

I was born in Eritrea . I came to Germany with my parents at an early age and went to school in Frankfurt . I was interested in music already at school. I loved singing and wanted to be a singer. My parents could not afford my attending a school of music financially. I wanted to learn how to play the piano but financial difficulties debarred me from taking piano lessons. I was not discouraged. I did not like the regular school curriculum and I had difficulties with some of the subjects. I knew I had to deal with the difficulties. I dealt with them and overcame them. Going through the difficulties and overcoming them made me stronger.

I was determined to get into the music business and become a music artist. I started looking for contacts in the music scene and finally got the chance to perform in a musical in Frankfurt. I was learning to sinf by doing.  With more practice, I got better. Later, I started receiving offers as a background vocalist from different music groups. I traveled around Europe performing with Reggae, Hip Hop and African music groups.

I gained a lot of experience, which motivated me to start thinking about developing my own style of music. I wanted to do rhythms with lyrics in my mother tongue, Trigrina. I have a great deal of resources I could draw from and integrate in my music.

Apart from the Afro-Reggae, Hip Hop, Soul and African ballads influences, my participating in the musical “Gospel Tribe” gave me valuable vocal and stage performance experiences. I am now in the position to combine all my experiences. I like to incorporate diverse styles into my music compositions.  Creativity is very important to me. I want to be flexible and be able to do different types of music. My music should be globally acceptable; a sort of world music. After experimenting and mixing different flavors, I have come up with my own music and formed my own band Injera Soul.

I wish that more people of African descent would attend Afro-centric concerts or events such as the Black Media Congress and the May Ayim Award. I attended both events. Though I went to the events without any specific expectation, somehow I wished I could meet people who are active in the media sector and the music business. I was hoping to meet music artists, discuss, exchange views and probably find a way of working together. The events were good but more interesting programs could be included in the May Ayim Award to make it more attractive. Including more artists and music shows for example, would be very interesting to me personally. In terms of literature, I love to read biographical essays or stories. I like reading about how people achieve their goals. I have my goals in the music industry. I hope to continue learning and progressing steadily until I achieve my goal as an acclaimed music artist.

 Afritopic 2004