West Bank meets North Africa

The Cedar Cultural Center prides itself on showcasing musicians from around the globe, but there is often an element of irony in the experience. Concertgoers must first pass through the East African culture of the Somalis and Ethiopians who live in the Cedar's West Bank neighborhood. Once inside the venue, however, the cultural "diversity" is less organic.

"For years, we have been very aware of where we are," said the Cedar's executive director, Rob Simonds. "Because our mission is to present music from other cultures, it has always been glaring that we have not been able to effectively reach out to our own back yard."

But now, thanks largely to funding from the Legacy Amendment that Minnesota voters approved in 2008, the Cedar is launching a "community access initiative" that begins with the Cedar's annual Global Roots Festival, running Tuesday through Friday.

Simonds and his staff had already booked the first three days of the festival when Legacy money became available, creating what Simonds calls "a wonderful opportunity to make that fourth day specific to the East African community." Meklit Hadero, an Ethiopian-born singer/songwriter based in San Francisco, agreed to perform twice on Friday, including a daytime show, class and question-and-answer session with students from the Cedar-Riverside Community School, a K-8 program in one of the towers behind the club.

The Cedar will also use Legacy funds to distribute 300 free tickets for Hadero's nighttime performance to community residents. M.anifest, a local hip-hop artist born in Ghana, will be the opening act.

"I don't have any illusions that we'll be regularly filling the house with East Africans -- they have to get used to being comfortable here, and we have to figure out what kind of events they want and the best ways to reach out," Simonds cautioned.

That said, the Cedar probably couldn't have picked a better performer than Hadero to help bridge the cultural gap.

The 30-year-old singer/songwriter came to this country as an infant but has always been engaged by her Ethiopian heritage, moving to Seattle after college at Yale to be close to her grandparents and the "tons of aunts and uncles that created a galvanizing family presence -- plus the city has a thriving Ethiopian community," she said by phone from her current home in San Francisco.

After relocating to the Bay Area to escape the frequent rain, Hadero founded the Arba Minch Collective, a group of artists from the Ethiopian diaspora who now make annual treks to the Arba Minch area of Ethiopia, where a traditional music festival draws artists from the region and other parts of Africa.

"Even with all my family connections, I realized I just had a sliver of a view of Ethiopian life and culture, and I wanted to broaden that view," she explained.

Hadero also seems like an ideal ambassador for the Cedar because her artistry is inseparably entwined with community organizing. She came to music performance very late -- just five years ago -- in connection with an initiative she helped start called the Mission Arts and Performance Project, or MAPP.

"The idea was to get as many alternative performance spaces as possible -- back yards, cafes, garages -- and combine musical and visual art and have a family component to it," she said. "I just fell in with all these passionate artists, exchanging ideas. Personally, it allowed me to develop an understanding of what art is as I was working on the technical side of songwriting and voice, and it provided me with a very supportive community."

Hadero is likely to deliver a performance that will enrich the experience of all comers, be they descended from East Africa, or Ole and Lena.

"After seeing so many concerts at the art house, I realized that everyone should be better when performing live," she said. "I always leave space in my songs for improvisation, to keep it fresh, so you don't know what to expect as you are expressing and interpreting. It makes it so everybody has to keep listening."