KEY TAKEAWAYS

Seven years in the making, Kuku Sebsibie’s unmistakably husky alto, “Dejazmach” (love wears a general’s crown) is to hit the airwaves. Cueing up as a cavernous Chik Chika beat, the record will arrive not on brittle plastic but on her YouTube channel, a farewell gesture to album-length projects from a singer who once had her albums sold on cassettes from the boot of a blue-and-white taxi.

“Albums are exhausting now,” she said. “Everyone streams. So, I’ll premiere it online and move on to singles, maybe a talk show.”

Kuku is hardly alone. Over the next six months, at least a dozen Ethiopian heavyweights, some returning after a decade-long silence, will unveil new work directly to phones, tablets, and laptops. Their migration marks a tipping point for a business that, until recently, relied on boot sale discs and the hope that royalty cheques might one day materialise.

The numbers are still dwarfed by Afrobeats powerhouses such as Nigeria. But, momentum is unmistakable. According to Statista, Ethiopia’s streaming market generated an estimated  4.61 million dollars in 2023 and is on course to hit  7.1 million dollars by 2027, with 1.7 million users hooked to earbuds and data bundles.

A homegrown platform, “Sewasew”,  launched two years ago with a promise of DRM-locked downloads, logged 60,000 app downloads in its first 45 days. Spotify finally flicked the switch for Ethiopian listeners in December 2022 after years of lobbying.

However, the rewards remain uneven.

Teddy Afro’s official YouTube channel clocks more than 1.06 million subscribers and 288 million cumulative views, enough to earn around 3,000 and 5,000 dollars a month in AdSense revenue.

For midtier singers, the digital dividend is slimmer. Streams pay in cents, but every click counts when physical sales are practically dead. Physical sales died because pirates killed them.

A 2019 industry survey found that four out of every five discs on Addis Abeba streets were illegal copies. Last month, the Ministry of Culture & Sport signed a five-year pact with MultiChoice Africa and the Intellectual Property Authority to shore up enforcement and educate consumers.

Against that backdrop, Kuku’s “Dejazmach” feels almost defiant. The 63-year-old recorded eight tracks gifted by reggaesoul superstar Teddy Afro over the past seven years. One cut, initially released two decades ago, has been rebuilt by arranger Tewodros Mekonnen.

“It’s my last long player,” she insisted, “but not my last song.”

Her next project is “Kuku’s Journey,” a conversational web series that will stream weekly.

In her slipstream comes Haymanot Girma, back after a 15-year hiatus with “Jenenu,” a 12-track set bristling with “Chikchaka Wende” and “Zuka”, subgenres she coined while school runs replaced stagecraft.

Recording took barely two months, but the thinking, she says, took three years.

“I studied moods, TikTok rhythms and what Gen Z expects of love songs” she said.

She has already sold distribution rights to Nahom Records, secured four video budgets and pencilled in club dates for early June.

For 26yearold Kaleab Kinfe (aka Kalkin) the digital highway is native territory. His debut, “Yale Fikir,” drops on April 25, with automatic placement on Spotify, Boomplay, and Apple Music.

“We finished in 27 months,” he told Fortune. “A producer watched every take. Fresh ears, fresh energy.”

One track, “Muziqa,” riffs on Dancehall drums; another flirts with blues guitar. The album art, a void shaped like a heart, nods to the title’s literal meaning: “Where love is absent.”

If the new crop moves at startup speed, veterans wrestle with slower logistics, and spiralling studio prices.

Ahmed Teshome, nicknamed “Dinbi” after his 2002 breakout hit, has spent 13 years whittling 35 rough demos to 13.

“We waited three months for a single saxophonist,” he said. “Then the mixing fee doubled from 30,000 Br to 70,000 Br a track.”