Genre of the Week: Dhaanto

Okay, rather than do "Pop, part 2" (which is a mastodon post) during this exam-heavy week I've decided to throw out another question about a genre since the last one went down so well. This one is about Dhaanto, which I gather is "traditional" music from the fascinating region of Ogaden, the somali-speaking part of eastern Ethiopia. I think I saw some on public access television today (it's a bit hard to identify without a name attached), and that got me started searching. YouTube has a few videos but there's inevitably a dedicated NewTube that has many many more...

The video that sparked my imagination a bit was off YouTube though:



That little piece of clever meta-music (designed to show the connections between reggae and dhaanto) really hit home what other videos had suggested - this is music that's immensely well-suited to reggae, funk and arabic pop reimaginings. I've heard a few treatments that way (like the one on TV), and there's a joy in using different strange timbres and arrangements that you rarely hear in African pop - in fact there are also strangely south-east asian qualities in a lot of the material. It's fascinating!

So I'm wondering - does anyone know anything about this music beyond the little you can gather from the videos? History? Big artists? Where can I get hold of it? I might do an expedition to a somali-heavy part of town at some point and see if I can find any CDs...