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Afropop Worldwide

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Afropop Worldwide

Where Music Tells the Story of the World Over 30 years of connecting you to music of Africa and the World!

01/07/2026

SENEGAL, UP CLOSE 🇸🇳🎶
An Afropop Music & Culture Tour
📍 Dakar + countryside
🗓 Jan 25 – Feb 7, 2027

Afropop Worldwide is planning a once-in-a-generation journey into one of Africa’s most electrifying musical cultures…and we want you on the interest list first.

Led by Afropop co-founders Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre, this immersive Senegal tour goes far beyond sightseeing. Think private sessions with legendary and rising artists, deep dives into mbalax, intimate meals with local creatives, village traditions, markets, museums, beaches, cooking lessons—and the legendary Senegalese spirit of teranga (hospitality).

From Dakar’s cutting-edge music scene to historic Gorée Island, this tour is being crafted through on-the-ground research in 2026 to ensure extraordinary access and unforgettable experiences.

• Afropop tours are known as life-changing.
• Travelers are curious, globally minded music lovers.
• Many return again and again.

📩 Join the newsletter / interest list to receive:

✔️ The full itinerary when it drops
✔️ Early access before spots fill
✔️ Details on our live info Zoom with Sean & Banning
✔️ Special in-person events (NYC folks 👀)

We took Afropop fans to Senegal in the ’90s.
2027 will be better than ever.

🇸🇳 Sign up via the link in bio to stay in the loop >>> bit.ly/afropopnewsletter

12/31/2025

🇬🇭 GHANA: CELEBRATION SOUNDS

In hard times and boom times, people in Ghana know how to party. In this program, we hear the regional pop and neotraditional music that animates festivals, funerals and community celebrations across the country.

We travel to the lush Volta region in the east to hear Ewe borborbor, agbadza and brass band music. In the northern city of Tamale, we hear Dagbani traditional music, hip-hop and pop, and visit the vibrant Damba chieftaincy festival in nearby Yendi. Back in the bustling metropolis, Accra, we get down to the latest pop hits and underground styles moving hips in the capital city.

🎧 Listen to the whole episode at Afropop.org, or get direct links in our stories and Highlights on IG.

Produced by .music

❣️FRIENDS!! We are SO CLOSE to making our 2025 year end giving goal! Please help us close the gap and visit afropop.org to make your tax deductible donation today!

12/26/2025

SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS: TARAB, THE ART OF ECSTASY IN ARAB MUSIC

Explore the rich traditions of Tarab in Arab music, its emotional ecstasy, and cultural values, through the insights of A.J. Racy, a renowned ethnomusicologist, and the artistry of legendary Tarab singers like Umm Kulthum, set against the backdrop of Aleppo’s Aleppian Tarab tradition and Syrian music culture.

Tarab, the ecstatic feeling associated with listening to and playing great music, is a fundamental characteristic of many varieties of Arab music. In this program, we explore tarab with special guest UCLA professor A.J. Racy. Racy draws on his lifelong study of music and musicians, as well as his insights as a virtuoso performer on the nay flute and the buzuq.

Racy guides us through the experiences of listeners and players, providing deep insight into many varieties of tarab. We hear works by A.J. Racy, Sabah Fakhri and Ensemble Al-Kindi of Syria, and the Egyptian queen of tarab Umm Kulthum.

LISTEN: https://www.afropop.org/audio-programs/tarab-the-art-of-ecstasy-in-arab-music

Featuring: .kulthum_

#سلطنة

12/21/2025

Luiz Gonzaga: The King of Baião

Sweet accordion riffs, the steady twang of the triangle, and the off-beat pounding of the zabumba drum make forro a favorite for all Brazilians. The infectious tunes and syncopated beats have been described as “a mixture of ska with polka in overdrive.” This edition of Afropop Worldwide’s Hip Deep will profile forro creator Luiz Gonzaga—from the wanderlust that led him from his rural birthplace in northeastern Brazil to a pumping career in the capital, Rio de Janeiro, in the 1940s. Conversations with Brazilian artists, recorded on location in the forro capital of Recife, following in Gonzaga’s footsteps.

Produced by Megwen Loveless

LISTEN >>> https://www.afropop.org/audio-programs

12/17/2025

Might Angelique Kidjo be the true Queen of Afropop?

We’re thinking Kings and Queens this week at Afropop. And while many might make the claim to be “Queen of Afropop” these days, it’s hard to think of anyone with a better claim to that throne than of Benin.

Ever since she broke onto the scene with her album Logozo in 1991, Angelique has been shaking up the scene on a regular basis with excursions into Cuban, Haitian and Brazilian music, American R&B, funk and rock, also classical music, jazz and on and on. She just keeps surprising us. Along the way, she’s won five Grammy Awards and countless other accolades.

All this got us looking back at the many fascinating conversations we’ve had with her over the years. Head to afropop.org to see the list of our features with her!

What do you think! Is she the True Queen, or can that crown be worn by many?

Love this content? Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to keep the beat alive at afropop.org.

12/15/2025

Ever heard percussion made from a donkey jawbone? 🐴✨

Afro-Peruvian groups like have brought this centuries-old instrument — the quijada — back into the global spotlight. Its rattling teeth and bone-on-bone crack give Afro-Peruvian music a sound like nothing else.

We dug into its roots, its role in Black Peruvian identity, and why Peru is the only place where the quijada still thrives today.

🐴 Check out the full story, listen to the music, and watch a tutorial on how to play the jawbone of an ass on our website: bit.ly/donkeyjaw

🪘If you value deep dives into the music, history, and culture of the African diaspora, we invite you to support Afropop’s year-end goal. Your gift keeps this work alive in 2026 and beyond.

🤲🏼🤲🏾🤲🏿 Donate here: bit.ly/donatetoafropop

Images and video:

Pepe Villalobos
Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón
KijadaStudio on YouTube

12/08/2025

HIP DEEP IN MADAGASCAR

Salegy may be the most popular dance music of Madagascar. It’s a churning, harmonious groove with spine-stiffening vocal harmonies that emerged from towns and cities of northern Madagascar in the mid-20th century. On a trip to Diego Suarez, we learn that salegy’s older origins are both fascinating and mysterious. We meet young salegy stars Ali Mourad and Jacs, and speak with the genre’s reigning legend, Jaojoby, on the roof of his nightclub in Antananarivo. Along the way we visit a music school in Diego and hear blazing guitar riffs and get a fingerpicking tour of the entire island from guitar maestro Hajazz. Produced by .

Afropop depends on listener donations! Make your tax-deductible gift to help us meet our year end goal at bit.ly/donatetoafropop.

12/05/2025

Living legend endorses Afropop Worldwide! Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our little non-profit media outlet that has served to preserve and uplift voices from the African continent and diaspora for 38 years. 🌍 We are a very small team of dedicated workers and volunteers who are passionate about the artistry, exquisite cultural transmissions and thought leadership from the Global South and regions where the pulse of true humanity still beats.

GIVE TODAY and help us meet our 2025 fundraising goal! >>> bit.ly/donatetoafropop or click the link in our bio!

12/03/2025

Ethiopian-American artist Meklit Hadero is here with a new chapter in the Ethio-jazz story. Her new album A Piece of Infinity () is a love letter to Nile-rooted music and to the endless circle of Black sound from Addis to Oakland, from the Nile to the diaspora.

A refugee from Derg-era Ethiopia who came of age in the U.S., Meklit co-founded The Nile Project, riding in vans from Aswan to Kampala, learning from traditional musicians and discovering that so-called “North” and “Sub-Saharan” Africa have always been one musical field. That journey pushed her to rethink tradition as something radically alive and experimental.

On A Piece of Infinity, Meklit draws from women’s and girls’ songs, New Year’s chants and praise-poetry, singing in Kambaata, Amharic, Oromigna and English. The record was tracked at in San Francisco with an all-woman engineering team, and features collaborators like harpist Brandee Younger , saxophonist Camille Thurman , and multi-instrumentalist Kibrom Birhane .birhane.

In our new interview, Meklit talks about circles of influence from Mulatu Astatke and John Coltrane to Black communities in Brazil and Oakland, the power of girls going door to door singing “Abeba Yehosh,” her father joining her onstage for “Gifata,” and why her only real strategy is “to be myself” and trust that the music will meet people at their deepest place.

🔗 Hear Meklit and explore A Piece of Infinity — full interview at afropop.org.

12/02/2025

KEEP THE BEAT ALIVE

37 years of amplifying the music and stories of Africa.

True before streaming. Still true now.

Afropop Worldwide has brought audiences deep into the sounds and cultures of Africa and the African diaspora since 1988 through our weekly public radio show, podcasts, Afropop.org, films, and our new Living Room Series.

This year, federal cuts left us with a critical budget gap. But we’re still here: publishing new features, interviewing artists across continents, preserving our massive archive, and supporting musicians at every stage of their creative journey.

This Giving Tuesday, your gift keeps Afropop alive for the next generation.

🔥 Support fresh reporting & artist storytelling

🔥 Help preserve four decades of archival recordings

🔥 Keep a vital cultural platform thriving

DONATE TODAY: bit.ly/keepthebeatalive or go to the LINK IN BIO 🔗

Every contribution keeps this global beat alive.

Address

463 Lincoln Place Unit 246
New York, NY
11238

Opening Hours

Monday	11am - 6pm
Tuesday	11am - 6pm
Wednesday	11am - 6pm
Thursday	11am - 6pm
Friday	11am - 6pm

Website

http://www.afropop.org/, http://twitter.com/afropopww, http://www.youtube.com/afropopworldwide

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