The African Music Archives have existed since 1991 and contain a collection of modern African music on records of various formats that is unique in Germany: shellac and vinyl records, audio and video cassettes, CDs and DVDs. The archives’ current holdings include over 10,000 records, some of which date back to the 1940s.
Regional focus areas are Ethiopia, Ghana, Cameroon, Congo (former Zaire), Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania. In addition, there are more or less representative holdings from almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa in the collection, which is still under development through regular acquisitions.
Several thousand newspaper clippings are kept in the clippings collection which is organized by country, music style, and musician. The articles, reports, interviews, and recorded reviews of the Mainz collection offer a rich pool of background material that can be viewed on site.
For more information, visit the AMA website.
On YouTube you can take a tour of the AMA.
You may also discover the multisensory site Fairtrade Music? Afrikanische Musik auf dem Weltmarkt, which was created as part of a teaching project (including the Round Table Discussion).
Contact at the Institute of Anthropology and African Studies
Photographer of the profile photo: Peter Pulkowski