Field Recordings from West Africa on the Internet Archive

Field recordings from West Africa document musical traditions that predate and inform much of the world's popular music. The polyrhythmic drumming, call-and-response vocals, and griot storytelling traditions captured in these recordings are the ancestral roots of jazz, blues, funk, and Afrobeat.

The Internet Archive hosts recordings made by ethnomusicologists, missionaries, and independent researchers from the mid-20th century onward. Many document traditions that have since been transformed by urbanization, globalization, and religious change.

These recordings are both musical treasures and ethical artifacts. They raise important questions about who records, who is recorded, and who benefits — questions that remain central to ethnomusicology today.