An Awo initiative
Borkor
Traditional & Popular Music and Oral History
Music, memory and the people behind them.
Borkor focuses on traditional and popular music and oral history as records of African life and knowledge.
Recordings can hold a performance, a conversation or an account of an event. Photographs, letters, notebooks and other related materials can help explain how that recording came to exist and what it meant to the people involved.
Borkor brings attention to both the materials and the knowledge needed to understand them.
What we seek to preserve
Music and its records
Sound recordings and related photographs, papers and other materials connected to traditional and popular music.
Spoken accounts
Recorded memories, personal histories and accounts of places, practices and events.
Names and context
The performers, speakers, creators, languages, dates and places that help give each record meaning.
Work with Borkor
We welcome enquiries from musicians, families, collectors, communities and cultural organisations holding relevant recordings or related materials.
Tell us what you hold, what you know about its history and whether you are proposing preservation work, a donation or a collaboration.
Begin with a description.
You do not need to know the technical name of a recording format. Describe the material as best you can and include any names, dates or places you know.
Send a Borkor enquiry