WHAT IS AFROPOP WORLDWIDE?

This year, Afropop Worldwide celebrates 20 years of excellence in connecting Americans to Africa and the World!

Afropop Worldwide is a radio program, a web site, a searchable database, an international musical archive, and a team of dedicated researchers. “Afropop” is also now used as a general term to describe popular African music.

In 1988, Afropop was launched by NPR as a weekly series. It was the first of its kind and, 20 years later, the program has expanded its vision to include the music and cultures that encompass the entire African Diaspora. The program is still the standard for both the curious and the connoisseur, and takes listeners to dynamic music capitals such as Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa; Cairo, Egypt; Havana, Cuba; Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; New York and Paris. Listeners meet the leading stars as well as emerging artists. Live concert recordings of world-class artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cesaria Evora, Gilberto Gil, Baaba Maal, Kanda Bongo Man and others are featured on the program.

Hosted by one of Africa 's best-loved broadcast personalities, Georges Collinet, and produced by Sean Barlow, Afropop Worldwide is currently distributed by PRI Public Radio International to over 115 stations in the U.S. The series is also heard in Europe and Africa .

Our vision is to increase the profile of African and African Diaspora music worldwide, and to see that benefits from this increased profile go back to artists, music industry professionals, and the countries that produce the music. The Afropop database of interviews, features, photos, CD Reviews and artist profiles is central to our strategy, as it harnesses the power of what we have done, and allows us to integrate past work with new research to support new projects. We are also working in partnership with Calabash Music to help musicians from Africa , the Caribbean and Latin America leapfrog over the barriers of the conventional music business and take advantage of the emerging digital marketplace for global music.

Afropop Worldwide and afropop.org are produced by World Music Productions, a Brooklyn based, non-profit multi-media organization founded by Sean Barlow in 1986. Financial contributions to support our work are gladly accepted and are tax-deductible !

Afropop Worldwide’s Board of Directors:

Sean Barlow
World Music Productions

Timothy J. Bork
Skye, LLC

Fiona Dunne
Tourism Ireland

Mitchell A. Harwood
Mitchell A. Harwood Partners, Inc.

Niambi Jarvis
Hiyaah Power

Angelique Kidjo
Artist

Bill Kornreich
Wealth Preservation Associates

Josh Mailman
Founder, Social Venture Network

Youssou N'Dour
Artist

Wilbert Sanchez

Magatte Wade
Adina World Beat Beverages

Randy Weston
Artist

AFROPOP WORLDWIDE WEB SITE

The Afropop Worldwide web site is a work-in-progress, which will soon be taking a large step into the future. Our goal from the start has been to make a highly user-friendly, exciting site that lets you get to the content you want quickly and easily-- happily bumping into music and information you never knew you needed along the way. We aim for nothing less than to be the premier destination for web denizens interested in contemporary music of Africa. Our mission of connecting world class veteran and emerging artists from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas with music lovers everywhere continues in full in the web world. In the radio world, over the past 20 years, we have built our reputation on superb programming skills, engaging story-telling and journalistic excellence. The same applies to our web site.  In the next year, we will be expanding out into more interactive, community-based features on top of our extensive interviews, features, etc…

OUR WONDERFUL WEB SITE CREW

The Afropop Worldwide website is developed by World Music Productions.

Afropop Worldwide producer Sean Barlow is the Project Director. He edits the weekly Afropop e-Newsletter.

Georges Collinet is the host of the Afropop Worldwide radio programs you hear through our on-demand streaming.

Banning Eyre is Senior Editor for Afropop.org and Director of Database Content Development. Visit Banning at banningeyre.com .

Matt Payne is Managing Editor for Afropop.org and Operations Director of Afropop Worldwide.

Roy Reiss is our Webmaster and IT Consultant.

Crystal (Bliss) Sloan of EagleRidgeTech.com is our Senior Technology Consultant. Crystal is our lead web systems consultant, the Microsoft Access programmer for the desktop version of our database, and has guided our database modeling team.

Marc Amigone is our Associate Editor for the weekly Afropop New York City Select Concerts & Events feature.

Our interns are Amadeus Junqueira, Adam Downey & Zach Lichtstrahl.

Images on our site provided by Banning Eyre, Georges Collinet, Ned Sublette, Sean Barlow, Jack Vartoogian and others.

Our worldwide network of Afropop reporters and co-producers contribute information and stories to the site.

OUR GRACIOUS FUNDERS

Crucial first funding for the Afropop Worldwide web site redevelopment project comes from the Joshua Mailman Charitable Trust (thank you Josh!).

We also thank the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for their generous support.

Initial research and strategic planning support for the site provided by the Ford Foundation .

Other current funders of our core research and production work include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Merck & Co, Ltd.

Hundreds of individuals support our work with tax-deductible contributions large and small. Go to Join Afropop to find out how you can join forces with us in spreading the word about these dynamic artists and the living, breathing music cultures they come from.

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Afropop Worldwide is produced by World Music Productions, a non-profit multi-media organization based in Brooklyn , NY . Find out how you can support our work with tax-deductible contributions.