Thomas Gobena

Thomas Gobena (nickname: Tommy T ; * 1971 in Addis Ababa ) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, manager, actor and producer of Ethiopian descent. Since 2006 he has been part of the eight-piece gypsy punk rock band Gogol Bordello as a bass player and singer .

Gobena's musical influences include Bob Marley, bassist Aston Barrett from Bob Marley's band The Wailers , Motown bassist James Jamerson, and American bassist, composer and producer Bill Laswell. With his band he has around 200 performances a year.

Gobena lives in Alexandria, a city in the state of Virginia .

Life

Thomas Gobena at Two Days a Week 2016

Childhood and youth

At the age of five he was allowed to play his older brother Zelalem's acoustic toy guitar for the first time. Later in elementary school, friends from a school band taught him the basics of music. However, he should never receive regular training as a professional musician.

Musical career

In 1987 the sixteen-year-old Gobena followed his older brother Henock Temesgen to the United States and lived there initially in Washington, DC, which at that time already had a community of around 200,000 Ethiopians in exile. Temesgen, who worked as a civil engineer during the day, tinkered through the pubs as a bass player at night and had already released a record called "Admas" (a combination of folk-Ethiopian music mixed with the sounds of reggae, samba, etc.) in Washington. Following the example of his brother, Gobena had hoped to make a living as a bassist. Following in the footsteps of his idol Bob Marley , he and his friend Zedicus (Zakki Jawad) first founded their own reggae band called "Adola", which was later to be renamed "The Abyssinian Roots Collective" or ARC. Part of this band were among others the Ethiopian singers Aster Aweke and Ejigayehu Shibabaw alias "Gigi" (currently one of the most famous and successful singers of Ethiopian origin). He played with them three to four times a week in restaurants, nightclubs and pubs while he was graduating from Williams High School. Gobena then studied computer science at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, but continued to use every opportunity to make music with his band on long weekends or during the semester break. After completing his studies, he returned to Washington, where he began working in the computer industry, which resulted in an unfortunate balancing act between everyday job and his beloved music. He took a job loss in April 2001 as an opportunity to give up his hated job for good.

Career as a professional musician

Together with his brother Temesgen, Gobena founded his own record label called "C-Side Entertainment" with the idea of ​​giving Ethiopian musicians in the diaspora access to the American mainstream . Openly and interested in a wide variety of musical styles, Gobena u. a. with R&B , hip-hop , neo-soul . He became the manager of the Ethiopian R&B singer / songwriter Wayna (Woyneab Miraf Wondwossen) , who has since received a Grammy nomination for her song “Lovin 'U”. On her CD "Moments of Clarity" Gobena also worked as a producer of several songs.

Due to the collaboration with the Israeli guitarist and producer Eran Tabib , a former member of the alternative rock band Spin Doctors , he got the chance in 2006 to audition for the gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello . Since then he has been a permanent member of the Multi-Kulti Combo.

Solo career

Gobena made her debut in 2009 with the solo album "The Prester John Sessions". Here he plays bass and Greek bouzouki and sings with Ethiopian friends from his time in Washington as well as Eugene Hütz (Ukraine) and Pedro Erazo (Ecuador). The idea of ​​the album, which mainly contains instrumental music, was to make the Ethiopian culture known worldwide. His music combines elements of the folkloric music of his homeland as well as different styles such as dub , jazz , funk , reggae, etc. v. a.

Discography

With Gogol Bordello

Albums

• 2007: Super Taranta
• 2009: Live from Axis Mundi
• 2010: Trans-Continental Hustle

Singles

• 2007: Wonderlust King

solo

• 2009: The Prester John Sessions

Movies

• 2007: Gogol Bordello non-stop
• 2008: Filth and Wisdom
• 2009: Larger Than Life in 3D
• 2009: Life From Axis Mundi

Web links

Commons : Thomas Gobena  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Website of Gogol Bordello
• Thomas Gobena in the Internet Movie Database (English)