Awesome Tapes From Africa

Brian Shimkovitz began collecting cassette tapes that were sold in markets while he was studying in Ghana and became obsessed with the eclectic sounds of these homegrown recordings. Upon returning to United States, Shimkovitz founded Awesome Tapes From Africa to share some of this obscure music with the world, securing the rights to release the music from the original artists and giving them a 50 percent cut of the profits. At Sleeping Village, Shimkovitz will present and evening of music that you're unlikely to hear anywhere else, combing through his collection to play choice cuts from West African performers.