Awesome Tapes from Africa

This is a sweet find, and I wish I could remember who originally linked me to this.

Awesome Tapes from Africa is a side project of a Brian Shimkovitz, who apparently did extensive work studying contemporary forms of music deep in Africa. There isn't so much South Africa in here because of how comparatively visible the country is, but I'm grateful for that, since at this point I don't need much help discovering local SA music.

The variety you can find is this site is exceptional. The site showcases pretty much everything under the sun that sits between the lowest-fi traditional recordings and modern electronica hip-hop. So basically its kind of like the awesome radio show, Afro-pop worldwide (which I highly recommend the podcast for), minus the worldwide part. Plus, Shimkovitz makes the entire tape available... Though it is a little funky how all of the music comes from cassettes still. I suppose they are much more durable in the cases than CD's are.

I almost wish I had discovered the site earlier in my stay, except that oh wait, my internet would never have allowed me to take advantage of the audio.