Sounds of AfricaSounds of Africa

The station is the broadcast end of MusicXChange, a nonprofit that places itself at the intersection of music, healing and education, run by volunteer musicians, producers and artists rather than by paid staff. It records traditional West African groups, releases the results on its own label, gives local artists studio time they do not pay for, and runs a study-abroad programme that brings students into the same rooms. The radio is how all of that reaches anybody outside them.

Highlife, afrobeat and reggae carry the rotation, and the label's own recordings sit inside it: a group from Aflao on the Togo border performing Adzogbo, a traditional Ewe dance from the Volta region, and a Ghanaian dance troupe playing live alongside a visiting Boston college drum and dance ensemble. Those sessions were gathered onto a label album, and the podcasts take the spoken hours.