[4] He gained great popularity in Ethiopia in the 1970s and among the Ethiopian diaspora in the 1980s, before rising to international fame with African music fans in Europe and the Americas.

Born in Addis Ababa, Mercato district,[5] Mahmoud was enthralled with the music he heard on Ethiopian radio from an early age.

Having poorly learned in school, he worked as a shoeshiner before becoming a handyman at the Arizona Club, which was the after hours hangout of Emperor Haile Selassie I's Imperial Bodyguard Band.

[4][7] Ethiopia was making headlines in the west because of political repression and famine, and the contrasting tone of Mahmoud's first international release received much acclaim in the burgeoning world music community.

Mahmoud gained even greater international popularity in the late 1990s after Buda Musique launched the Éthiopiques series on compact disc.

Though he has made his home in Addis Ababa and works with a number of NGOs and philanthropic causes,[8] he continues to tour internationally, performing concerts both for world music fans as well as the Ethiopian diaspora.

The song titles on his 1997 album Soul of Addis all speak to similar themes with the words love, lonely, longing and alone are all recurring refrains.