-How did you start collecting African tapes?
I went to Ghana for the first time as an ethnomusicology student when I was in college and then a second time doing a Fulbright research grant project on the hip-hop movement there. I spent a total of a year and a half there mostly living on the coast in Accra, the capital. But I also spent time further inland living and doing research a couple other cities. I found myself constantly looking in music shops and in the open-air markets all over town where the cassette sellers would be cool and play tapes for me before I bought them so I learned a lot. And then there was the Radio. The radio in Ghana is so great, they do long mixes and mashups and there’s a lot of interjections by the DJ, mixing so many genres. Radio was my guide for pop music.



I often asked my friends and neighbors about different stuff I was hearing. Sometimes I really questioned people hard to find out about stuff that wasn’t obvious or mainstream, to find out what even existed. I would go to smaller towns and ask a lot of questions to random people about traditional music and regional styles until I was lead in the right direction. I could end up listening to some small band play a few tunes on the fly or hear obscure dubbed cassettes in a stranger’s house. People are always super welcoming in Ghana, it’s a lovely place.



-When did you decide to start the site?
Shortly after I moved to Brooklyn I decided to start Awesome Tapes from Africa as a way to share the insane collection of fascinating music I brought back. It seemed like the best way to do was in this simple format and it caught on pretty quickly. It’s been fun for me to see people get excited about music fro Africa that’s a bit off the beaten path. Some readers are total experts and others are just beginning to check it out but it seems like everyone is getting something out of it.



-How do you do you keep getting new music?
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to visit Africa but I’ve had zero trouble growing the collection and keeping the blog interesting. Readers and friends send me tapes or people I know who go on trips will bring some back for me or give me hidden caches from past trips. I also look around shops in Brooklyn or Paris or wherever I can find them.



-What was your favorite personal discovery?
My all time favorite discovery is still Ata Kak, the weirdest, most jamming yet mysterious tapes in my collection. Also the very first recording I posted and the srongest reason for starting in the first place.



-Anything you want to add?
I think it’s cool that some musicians have been contacting me to say they are inspired by the music they’ve heard on the blog. I love that some of the excellent musicians from Africa are having some kind of affect on dudes from Bushwick to Sydney.