Awesome Tapes From Africa

Awesome Tapes From Africa is a record label and website operated by Brian Shimkovitz, known for bringing attention to cassette-based and locally circulated recordings from West Africa and beyond. The project began as a blog and developed into a label as Shimkovitz sought ways to share music that was rarely heard outside its original context, spanning styles such as highlife, African disco, left-field soul, and local pop.

According to Wikipedia, the site was founded in 2006 in Brooklyn, New York, and the operation is based in Los Angeles, California. Shimkovitz’s interest in the region’s cassette culture grew while he was on a Fulbright scholarship in Ghana, where street vendors sold recordings across a wide range of genres. That experience shaped the label’s identity around listening, documentation, and circulation of music that had often been distributed informally or regionally.

The label’s catalog reflects this curatorial approach, highlighting artists whose work illustrates the breadth of modern African popular music and its diaspora. Releases associated with Awesome Tapes From Africa have included recordings by Ghanaian musician Ata Kak, Ethiopian keyboardist Hailu Mergia, and DJ Black Low, among others. Rather than focusing on a single genre or era, the label’s selections emphasize the variety of dance music, pop, and hybrid forms that emerged through local scenes and cassette economies.

Awesome Tapes From Africa has also been associated with artists such as Roger Bekono and Gibraltar Drakus, further underscoring its interest in distinctive regional sounds and overlooked personal discographies. Across its activities as both a website and a label, Awesome Tapes From Africa has functioned as a platform for reintroducing recordings to wider audiences while keeping attention on the places and circumstances in which the music originally circulated.