This program ventures into corners of Africa we rarely hear from, guided by adventurous field recordists and crate diggers. The Zomba Prison Project is a set of recordings by inmates at a maximum security prison in Malawi, one of the poorest nations on earth. The project’s debut CD was nominated for a Grammy Award. Here, we speak with the producer, Ian Brennan, and hear tracks from a volume of soulful, even heartbreaking, songs from the prison. We then go back to the 1960s and ‘70s in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) to sample a gorgeous set recordings by Volta Jazz, Dafra Star, Les Imbattables Leopards and more. We hear from Florent Mazzoleni, the author and intrepid vinyl collector behind the new box set, Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta.

Produced by Banning Eyre

APWW #738