Tizita is a type of song in Ethiopian

Music of Ethiopia

The music of Ethiopia is extremely diverse, with each of Ethiopia's ethnic groups being associated with unique sounds. Some forms of traditional music are strongly influenced by folk music from elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia. However, Ethiopian religious music also has an...

 and Eritrean music

Music of Eritrea

Eritrea is a country in the Horn of Africa. Perhaps the most famous Eritrean musicians in history are Eng. Asghedom W.Micheal, Bereket Mengisteab, Yemane Baria, Osman Abderrehim, Alamin Abdeletif & Atowe Birhan Segid, some of whose music were banned by the Ethiopian government in the 1970s...

. The term itself may serve as the name of a ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 performed in this style, or it can refer to the musical mode

Musical mode

In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...

 used in such songs. Western

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

 sources often compare tizita to the blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

.

Azmari

Azmari

An azmari is an Ethiopian singer-musician, comparable to the European bard or the West African griot . Azmari, who may be either male or female, are skilled at singing extemporized verses, accompanying themselves on either a masenqo or krar...

s first introduced tizita. Modern Ethiopian artists who have performed tizita songs include Aster Aweke

Aster Aweke

Aster Aweke is an Ethiopian singer who lives in the United States. She is sometimes referred to as Ethiopia’s Aretha Franklin.Aweke was born in 1961 in Gondar, Ethiopia, and was raised in the capital city of Addis Ababa...

, Bezawork Asfaw, Teddy Afro

Teddy Afro

Teddy Afro is a popular Ethiopian singer and critic of the ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front...

 and Mahmoud Ahmed

Mahmoud Ahmed

Mahmoud Ahmed is an Ethiopian singer of Gurage ancestry.-Biography:Born in Addis Ababa, Mahmoud shined shoes in that city before becoming a handyman at the Arizona Club, where he first sang professionally in the early 1960s...

.