The Ethiopian Diaspora Stories Project presents the story and music of Elias Negash. Elias is a Bay Area Ethiopian diaspora transplant who hails from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He left his birth country during the time of Emperor Haile Selassie, and he has been dominating the Bay Area Ethio Jazz/Reggae scene as an accomplished pianist since his arrival in the early 1970’s. When EDSP sat down with him to record his story in 2017, Elias mentioned that relationships between Eritreans and Ethiopians were looking up. In 2018, the two countries opened up a peace dialogue and vowed to abandon the war mentality to work towards economic prosperity based on mutual respect and benefit.