Hip Deep Fourteen years ago, with support from the NEH, we created Hip Deep, a subseries integrated into the overall Afropop Worldwide program offering. Hip Deep programs build on the techniques and format developed for Afropop Worldwide, but are enhanced by rigorous academic and field research that translates into higher production values. Every episode of Hip Deep actively involves leading humanities scholars to illuminate a wealth of history, culture, politics, ethnic and spiritual contexts. Over 15 years, Hip Deep has produced over 110 humanities-focused programs and a wide range of supplementary Web resources (interviews, videos, text/photo features, podcasts), all easily accessible within the Hip Deep section of our website. Hip Deep amplifies Afropop Worldwide’s longstanding commitment to disseminate humanities themes to the general public through world music via a growing set of media pathways.
Closeup August 15, 2023
Stambeli: Music that Heals from Tunisia
Hip Deep August 10, 2023
Part 2 of Afropop's Al Andalus series focuses on the effects in Africa and the Middle East.
Hip Deep August 10, 2023
Afropop Classic August 3, 2023
The World Sacred Music Festival In Fes, Part 1
Afropop Classic July 27, 2023
This Afropop Worldwide program traces the history of the oud.
Hip Deep July 20, 2023
Closeup July 18, 2023
Afropop Classic July 13, 2023
Hip Deep July 6, 2023
Mali: Ancient Empires to Multi-Cultural Democracy
Closeup July 4, 2023
Afropop Classic June 29, 2023
Mali’s Amadou & Mariam Headline the 25th Afro Roots Fest in Miami
Afropop Classic June 1, 2023
The 21-string harp, the kora, is deeply explored in this Afropop Worldwide program.
Afropop Classic May 24, 2023
Afropop Worldwide sums up its 2023 visit to Dar Es Salaam, with live music and interviews.
Afropop Classic May 18, 2023
Oromo Music: Historical Memory and Competing Visions in Ethiopia
Afropop Classic May 11, 2023
Thirty years of interviews and music from Johnny Clegg, Juluka and Savuka.
Afropop Classic April 20, 2023
David Katz delves into the broad array of popular music in contemporary Costa Rica.
Afropop Classic April 13, 2023
This program explores the life and music of Congolese superstar Papa Wemba.
Afropop Classic March 30, 2023
This program samples performances from the Sauti Za Busara festival in Stonetown, Zanzibar, Tanzania, in February 2023.
Afropop Classic March 23, 2023
WOMEX 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal, featured mostly women-led bands in its African and African diaspora lineup.
Afropop Classic March 9, 2023
We hear highlights from the 2022 Afro-Roots Fest in Miami featuring Dayme Arocena and Sinkane.
Hip Deep February 16, 2023
This program tells the story of how jazz emerged in the context of all the other African American musics that proliferated in late 19th and early 20th century New Orleans: blues, ragtime, Mardi Gras Indian music, vaudeville and minstrelsy, spiritual church music, and more.
Hip Deep February 9, 2023
Jazz pianist Maurice Rocco was a star of American nightclubs and Hollywood films in the 1930s-40s, playing in an ecstatic, stand-up style that left a deep impression on rock and roll.
Afropop Classic January 26, 2023
Brazilian broadcaster, producer and music aficionado Béco Dranoff returns to Afropop Worldwide with a set of great new music from South America’s music cauldron.
Afropop Classic January 19, 2023
In this episode, we explore the synthesizer, looking closely at the history of this ubiquitous (and often debated) piece of musical technology, and investigating how and why it was first used in a variety of African musics.
Afropop Classic January 5, 2023
From Paris to New Orleans and Boston, Haitian musicians are shaking up the music scene.
Afropop Classic December 29, 2022
Over the past 60 years, a number of musicians from Africa and its diaspora have come to base themselves, or have been born, in Sweden.
Afropop Classic December 22, 2022
Afropop asks artists what new things they discovered in music in 2022.
Afropop Classic December 16, 2022
In hard times and boom times, people in Ghana know how to party. In this program, we hear the regional pop and neotraditional music that animates festivals, funerals and community celebrations across the country.
Afropop Classic November 27, 2025
Afropop Classic November 20, 2025
Quelbe is an energetic form, led by sax or flute with percussion and banjo, and it fuels the traditional dance style, quadrille. St Croix is the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and sits alone 42 miles south of St. Thomas and St. John.
Afropop Classic November 13, 2025
Afropop Classic November 6, 2025
Afropop Classic October 30, 2025
We sample musical life in South Africa 20 years after the end of apartheid.
Afropop Classic October 23, 2025
This program surveys African diaspora musicians creating their own worlds, circa 2007.
Afropop Classic October 9, 2025
Alex Wolfe, director of the film "Santo Domingo Blues: The Story of Bachata" brings us live ambience and stories of bachata stars Luis Vargas, Antony Santos, Luis Segura, Adridia Ventura.
Afropop Classic October 2, 2025
Afropop Classic September 25, 2025
It's Hispanic Heritage Month at Afropop Worldwide!
Afropop Classic September 18, 2025
Discover the origins of Puerto Rican salsa as legendary bandleaders Rafael Ithier, Quique Lucca, and Willie Rosario share the story of how a Venezuelan DJ and Fania Records turned Cuban-style music into a global cultural identity.
Afropop Classic September 11, 2025
Afropop Classic September 4, 2025
In this Hip Deep edition, Afropop producer Wills Glasspeigel heads to South Africa to reveal the story of the inimitable Hugh Tracey, a field recordist born at the turn of the 20th century in England.
Hip Deep August 28, 2025
From early Baghdad to Qawwali and Iraqi maqam, Joseph Braude and Islamic scholars explore how Islam shapes music across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
Hip Deep August 21, 2025
This Hip Deep edition explores the sonically vibrant realm of Afro-Peruvian music, a young genre identification that has flourished since the 1950s and has now produced artists of international renown, such as singer Susana Baca, and the black folkloric company Peru Negro.
Afropop Classic August 14, 2025
Banning Eyre's roundup of roots music from Madagascar, circa 2019, with Tarika Sammy, Jaojoby, Damily, Razia and Toko Telo. Updated for 2025.
Afropop Classic August 7, 2025
Nigeria is today the undisputed powerhouse of African pop music. Call it Naija Pop, Afrobeats, Afropop or what have you. The likes of Burna Boy, Wizkid, Yemi Alade and Tiwa Savage are giants on the scene.
Hip Deep July 31, 2025
Afropop Classic July 24, 2025
Planet Afropop July 17, 2025
Banning Eyre meets Thomas Mapfumo at home and introduces Mary Anibal.
Hip Deep July 10, 2025
Planet Afropop July 8, 2025
Nathaniel Braddock digs into the alternative music scene in Kinshasa, Congo.
Afropop Classic July 3, 2025
Afropop Classic June 26, 2025
This program ventures into corners of Africa we hear from rarely, guided by adventurous field recordists and crate diggers.
Planet Afropop June 24, 2025
Host FayFay sits with two emerging Nigerian artists whose paths are as bold as their sound, Looking for Avala and Inima.
Afropop Classic June 12, 2025
Planet Afropop June 10, 2025
Planet Afropop profiles Madalitso Band from Malawi, and interviews Salif Keita.
Afropop Classic June 5, 2025
Georges Collinet cooks Yassa Chicken, and hosts Baba John Mason in the kitchen.
Hip Deep May 29, 2025
This week, Afropop revisits the home of styles such as merengue and bachata, but this time we’ll be looking towards the most deeply African side of Dominican music—little known outside of the island.
May 27, 2025
Marika Partridge goes deep into pan music with Andy Narell.
Afropop Classic May 22, 2025
Ned Sublette Explores Iconic Songs That Shaped Jamaican Music History
