Liberian Vinyl LP Records

I’m a record collector. Old vinyl records. It’s one of the reasons that I was enthusiastic to move to West Africa, to find some of those highlife and rumba and afro-beat classics.

But compared to all the other West African countries, Liberia is probably the worst one for looking for old records. First, there was never much of an indigenous recording industry here. Second, the historically limited purchasing power of the Liberian consumer means there was never a big demand for vinyl imports. Third, after 14 years of war, things were kinda destroyed. That’s not to say I haven’t found any, and that I won’t find more. (If you’re Liberian and you want to sell your old African records, email me!)

Most of the records you find here are not Liberian, but come from neighboring countries (esp. Ghana and Nigeria). But there are exceptions. And in the interest of cataloging some of Liberia’s past in audio recordings, I thought I would post some pics. I doubt these images are available anywhere else!

So far the one by Hawa Daisy Moore is the only Liberian music record I've been able to find, and the cover is missing! The others are spoken word.