Afropop Worldwide

For some 50 years, Leo Sarkisian was a worldwide staple on the overseas radio broadcast of Voice of America. A talented musician, raised in the Armenian community around Boston, Leo began traveling the world with his Nagra tape recorder and microphones for Tempo International, a Hollywood record label. His intrepid work in remote corners of Afghanistan and in newly independent G...

As the 21st century rolls on, more and more of the musical artists who are making a difference cannot be pinned down to any one national identity.Migration, intermarriage, and the hurly burly of our globalized planet are creating new and growing generations of change-makers with hyphenated identities. In this program we hear from Ayo (Nigerian/Roma/German), Meklit Hadero (Ethiop...

From his Cameroonian roots, to his DJ days in Paris, his global broadcast career on VOA from the 1960s into the ‘80s, and his 38-year career hosting Afropop Worldwide, Georges Collinet is living an extraordinary life. On this program we celebrate the man, his stories, his passions, his wit and humanity. You’ll experience Georges as never before, an African music legend, and a ve...

n Jamaica, sound systems are more than just a stack of speakers blasting the latest tunes to an eager crowd. Over the last 70 years, they have come to represent the most common way that Jamaicans experience music. Sound systems have touched all levels of society in Jamaica, determining the island’s popular taste and profoundly influencing the daily lives of its citizenry. This p...

The golden age of vinyl records is long past in Africa, but the market for rare and reissued African vinyl outside the continent has been growing steadily since the early 2000s. DJs and collectors have turned an obsession with rare records and forgotten gems from Cape Town to Tangiers into an international reissue and compilation industry, led by record labels such as Soundway, ...