Tilahun was honored with a state funeral attended by tens of thousands of his fellow citizens.
He died on April 19, 2009, in Addis Ababa shortly after returning from America. In his later years, he suffered from diabetes. He raised money for aid during the famines of the 1970s and 1980s and earned the affection of the nation, being awarded a doctorate degree by the University of Addis Ababa and also winning a lifetime achievement award from the Ethiopian Fine Art and Mass Media Prize Trust. During the 1960s, he became famous throughout the country, nicknamed “The Voice”. Tilahun Gessesse was an Ethiopian singer regarded as the most popular of the country’s “Golden Age”.
