{"id":39338,"date":"2022-09-02T01:59:30","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T08:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=39338"},"modified":"2022-09-01T16:06:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T23:06:31","slug":"gili-yalo-returns-to-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2022\/09\/02\/gili-yalo-returns-to-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Gili Yalo returns to city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gili Yalo performs in Vancouver on Sept. 24 for a Chutzpah! Plus event. (photo from Chutzpah!)<\/em><\/p>\n

Israeli singer-songwriter Gili Yalo returns to Vancouver for a Chutzpah! Plus concert on Sept. 24. It\u2019s his first time back in the city since 2015, when he was part of the band Zvuloon Dub System. Yalo said he can\u2019t wait \u2013 \u201cthe last time at the Chutzpah! Festival was wonderful!\u201d he told the Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Zvuloon Dub was touring the United States and other countries. \u201cPart of the tour was the Chutzpah! Festival,\u201d said Yalo, \u201cand we finished the tour in Montego Bay, Jamaica, performing in the legendary festival SumFest. After being part of Zvuloon Dub for seven years, I felt that it was the right time and the right spot to start something new. I came back to Tel Aviv and started working on new songs for my solo career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yalo\u2019s eponymous first solo album, released in 2017, was very well-received and he followed it up in 2019 with the EP Made in Amharica<\/em>, on which he collaborated with Dallas-based musicians in Niles City Sound, a studio in Fort Worth. He has released several singles and has played on stages and in festivals around the world.<\/p>\n

But, even though he has been a singer his whole life and performing almost as long \u2013 including in children\u2019s choirs and during his time in the Israel Defence Forces \u2013 Yalo resisted making music a career. Among his alternate endeavours was being a club owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0opened the club for Israeli Ethiopian people, who didn\u2019t feel safe to stand in line at Israeli clubs; back then we got a lot of refusal just because of the colour of our skin,\u201d he explained. \u201cAt the club, there were two floors, one of R&B and reggae\/dancehall music, the other one was Ethiopian music. It really affected me because I have heard and learned lots of Ethiopian music.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter several years of running the club, I felt that I needed to do something different in my life \u2026 and I told myself, you don\u2019t want to regret not trying to achieve your biggest dream, and I decided that I had to try and overcome my fears. It was natural for me to make a fusion of Ethiopian music and Western music such as jazz, funk, R&B and reggae, because that was my life between home and the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Ethiopia, Yalo was 4 or 5 years old when he and his family fled to escape famine in 1984. Traveling by foot, it took them about two months to walk from the Gondar region, in northern Ethiopia, to refugee camps in Sudan, where they stayed for several months, until being airlifted to Israel as part of Operation Moses.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of the songs that I\u2019m writing are talking about identity, journey and integration into society, so I think all of it came from the experience of making aliyah and the difficulty in the process,\u201d Yalo told the Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are many things that Yalo would still like to accomplish, but, right now, he said, \u201cI especially want to share music.\u201d He wants to write good songs, collaborate \u201cwith musicians that I appreciate, and take my music to a place that it can inspire lots of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing in Vancouver with Yalo will be Nadav Peled (guitar), Dor Heled (keys), Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Eran Fink (drums) and Geoffrey Muller (bass).<\/p>\n

About coming to the city, Yalo said, \u201cI want to say that Vancouver is one of the best places in the world. I\u2019ve seen so many places thanks to music and,\u00a0if it wasn\u2019t so far away from my family, I would definitely consider living there.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to the Sept. 24, 8 p.m., concert at the Rothstein Theatre, visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gili Yalo performs in Vancouver on Sept. 24 for a Chutzpah! Plus event. (photo from Chutzpah!) Israeli singer-songwriter Gili Yalo returns to Vancouver for a Chutzpah! Plus concert on Sept. 24. It\u2019s his first time back in the city since 2015, when he was part of the band Zvuloon Dub System. Yalo said he can\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[31,21716,4330,3036,175],"class_list":["post-39338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-chutzpah","tag-gili-yalo","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-rothstein-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}