Keep the Sand Outta the SIM

Africa’s latest renaissance is propelled largely by the indigenous technological transformation brought about by the proliferation of one device, the mundane mobile telephone, which has become a powerful instrument for human advancement.

Africa has been described as the first mobile-only continent. Mobile phones double as computers, payment devices, medical reminders, flashlights, & music players. The mobile phone is being used to preserve & strengthen democracy. The use of this technology for human advancement is much more innovative in Africa than anywhere else in the world.

The mobile phone is now sufficiently powerful & inexpensive, its coverage across most sub-Saharan African countries is so sufficiently extensive, that Africans are able to benefit from a means of communication & a mode of sharing that had largely passed the continent by.

It is now one of the main devices for sharing music from around the continent & around the world. Songs from far-flung locales are swapped via SIM cards on city streets & rural villages. A single cell phone can provide a myriad of music artists from all over Africa.

In 2008, Chris Kirkley went to West Africa to record folk music. "At first I ignored the cell phones because that’s not part of what I was looking for. I wanted to record traditional music. It took me a while to look at the cell phone & be like, it’s the radio, it’s the television, it’s how people are consuming media now."  Here are the results.

Various – Music from Saharan Cellphones, Sahel Sounds 003, 2011.
decryption codes in comments

Side A –

Group Anmataff – Tinariwen

Yeli Fuzzo – Abandé

Amanar – Alghafiat

Negib Ould Ngainich – Guetna

Papito (featuring Iba One) – Yereyira

Side B –

Mdou Moctar – Tahoultine

Kaba Blon – Moribiyassa

Joskar et Flamzy – Faroter

Bayta Ag Bay – Aicha

Call me,

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