When Nyasha Amoako unlocks the Listening Library each Saturday, she begins with a cleansing routine: lights dimmed, windows cracked, speakers softly playing rainfall recorded in Accra three decades ago. Only after the space feels grounded does she pluck the first cassette from a shoebox, cradle it like a seed, and slide it into a digitizer. The archive glows to life.
Nyasha is one of forty-two volunteer “guardian keepers” stewarding Afrika Poetry Theatre’s analog-to-digital migration. Together they tend to a catalog of more than 11,000 tapes—spoken-word sets, freedom songs, pirate radio shows, bedtime stories, and oral histories created across the African diaspora between the 1970s and early 2000s. Much of the material was recorded in kitchens, community centers, and college dorms before the internet offered an easy upload button. Until recently, most of it was stored in basements vulnerable to mold and power outages. Now, thanks to community ingenuity, the archive lives in a temperature-controlled commons with redundant cloud backups and a plan for intergenerational stewardship.
A gentle, analog workflow
The preservation workflow intentionally resists rush culture. Each cassette is brushed, documented by hand, and blessed with breath to dislodge stubborn dust. Guardian keepers log track lists, performer names, and community context in a shared spreadsheet that is written in both English and Twi. When they encounter gaps—an unidentified drummer, a venue nickname—they add questions to the margin so the oral history committee can follow up. The process functions as both a technical operation and a storytelling ceremony.
“You can’t digitize these tapes like you’re churning through a playlist,” Nyasha explains. “People whispered secrets to those microphones. That deserves patience.”
The patience shows. The digitized files retain the warmth of the original recordings, complete with crowd laughter and the gentle click of the stop button. Guardian keepers resist the urge to scrub away imperfections; instead, they annotate them so listeners understand the environment where the sound was born.
Community-controlled infrastructure
APT built the Listening Library with cooperative principles. Hardware purchases came from community fundraisers. Engineers from local maker spaces trained volunteers to repair decks, replace belts, and calibrate playback heads. A rotating governance council—composed of teen interns, elder artists, and accessibility advocates—votes on metadata standards and listening policies.
Security is also community-led. Rather than locking files behind corporate logins, the team created a tiered access system. Visitors can sample curated playlists online, while researchers and family members can request higher-resolution files onsite. Every visitor signs a cultural respect agreement that rejects sensationalism and commits to citing artists properly.
A youth-powered catalog
Teen apprentices make up the largest cohort of guardian keepers. They receive stipends, audio engineering training, and wellness support because listening to decades of testimony can be emotionally intense. Apprentices rotate through roles: digitizer, transcriber, translator, and storyteller. They interview elders to contextualize recordings and produce weekly highlight reels shared via the APT newsletter and public radio partners.
Seventeen-year-old Mo, who joined after attending a youth journalism workshop, says the work has changed how they view history. “When you hear a 1989 poem naming the same housing fight we’re still in, you realize continuity isn’t just in textbooks. It’s in breath. We get to keep that breath moving.”
Technology that listens
While the Listening Library is intentionally analog at the point of capture, it embraces thoughtful technology. Scripts built by volunteer developers automate backups to decentralized storage, ensuring files survive even if a server fails. A custom search interface lets visitors browse by instrument, emotion, or geography thanks to descriptive tagging sessions where community members collectively listen and annotate.
APT recently added a “care mode” toggle that lowers volume, increases captions, and offers content warnings for recordings that discuss grief or state violence. The toggle was co-designed with disability justice advocates who wanted more agency while listening.
The ripple effect
Since launching the Listening Library, APT has partnered with mutual-aid kitchens, youth detention centers, and village cultural councils. Traveling listening stations pop up at farmers markets and transit hubs with solar-powered speakers and beanbags. Families are invited to record new stories on the spot, feeding the archive forward.
The project also sparked new creative commissions. Composer Tumi Khumalo built an orchestral suite sampling lullabies from the archive, while choreographer Yazmin Rivera created a dance piece translating cassette static into movement. Each artist pays licensing fees that go into an ancestor honor fund for the families of original recordists.
Stewardship is forever
The Listening Library team knows their task is ongoing. Magnetic tape will continue to age, climate crises will intensify, and technology will evolve. Guardian keepers attend quarterly “futures labs” to imagine next steps: printing waveforms into textiles, encoding stories into ceramic tiles, or teaching AI models to respect artist permissions.
For now, Nyasha keeps unlocking the archive every Saturday. She threads another cassette, scribbles down the names she hears, and smiles when the crowd erupts on tape. “We aren’t just saving sound,” she says. “We’re extending the breath of everyone who trusted us enough to press record.”