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Music

Found Music From Saharan Cell Phones [Free Download]

A mixtape featuring the sounds of Saharan Africa.

Christopher Kirkley was on a trip round west Africa when he noticed passengers on a bus pulling out their mobile phones in an area where there was no reception. But calling their friends to chat inanities was the last thing on their minds, instead they were using them to play and record music and share files, bluetoothing mp3s to each other, the device overtaking the cassette tape as a means of musical reproduction and distribution.

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When Christopher arrived in the town of Kidal in Mali he came across some abandoned mobile phones and decided to copy the music from their memory cards. The result is a mixtape, Music From Saharan Cell Phones, made from the found sounds — Tamashek guitar, Algerian Rai, Arabic habibe pop, French ballads — which you can download for free here.