I have spent two euphoric hours perusing the MP3 blog, Awesome Tapes From Africa, desperately trying to assemble what I so wish I’d managed to smuggle back with me this summer from the streets of Ouaga and Accra. Unreliable street CD vendors, and unfamiliarity with the musical masters from West Africa kept me from really digging and buying music that would encode what we were listening to in make shift Maquis’s, music halls, and street sides on a daily basis. I should have known that Tapes were the way to go. I’ll never forget the times we had to assist the DJ at Le Titanic locate that particular requested song amongst his piles and piles of Cassette Tapes. It always made me wonder what kind of musical and categorical memory you need to be a Tape Jockey relying on Rewinds and Forwards. What a way to listen to music.
This blog belongs to an ethnomusicologist who spent a number of months in West Africa collecting tapes of all genres from all types of artists. His tape-to-MP3 blog is a welcomed addition to my longing ears. I spent months trying to build a collection of music my ears had gotten so used to from the summer. Emails to my Burkina counterparts requesting names, desperate YouTubing and Googling produced unfruitful results. I was saved when I was lent some compilations of mostly Burkina specific music (Yeleen, Floby, Faso Kombat). This blog’s compilations are by no means comprehensive, but it has a pretty diverse range of downloads. Popular figures like Tiken Jah make an appearance, in addition to more obscure names like Mariam Bogayogo, although most of it tends to be more traditional with few, if any references to performers specializing in Ivorien dance sensation, coupe decalle.
