Awesome Tapes from Africa

Book excerpt: In 2001, Brian Shimkovitz was on a Fulbright scholarship in Ghana studying ethnomusicology when he first discovered the region's thriving cassette culture. Since then, he has dedicated his time to sharing this previously unheard music for a global audience on a hugely popular website. Curated by Shimkovitz himself, Awesome Tapes from Africa brings together the website's most listenable finds to create a dazzling visual history of the amazing music that has emerged from West Africa in recent years. From hip-hop inflected pop to traditional local songs, house disco beats to classic soul ballards, this is an exuberantly diverse collection of genres, styles, and artists. Wonderfully combining Shimkovitz's infectious enthusiasm with his academic expertise and local knowledge, Awesome Tapes from Africa is a collection to revisit again and again.