SWP Records - A One-Man African Music Label

Releasing music from central, southern, and eastern Africa "that regular labels won’t touch!"

Michael Baird, who describes himself as a Zambian-born drummer, composer, producer, and field recordist, started SWP Records in 1987. It appears to be going strong nearly 40 years later, with a wealth of music available in physical formats, as well as FLAC and mp3 files, all of it at Bandcamp.

Don't go looking for SWP music on streaming platforms. As Baird notes, "You won't find us on Spotify or any other streaming platform, as we opted out in February 2020 — because they do not pay labels decently, yes we left them all! At Bandcamp we set our own prices, which are low and fair."

In addition to Baird's own work - solo and with collaborators - there's a pile of other African music. It's almost overwhelming and I can see numerous things that bear investigating.

I've been listening to a lot of music from Malawi lately and so Malawi Grooves, in particular, caught my eye. It's a collection of Malawian music from the Fifties that's described, in part, as "crystal clear recordings of incredibly hip music show that it should be - for all music lovers! Pure wizardry by a tuned drum ensemble, a magical magogodo xylophone, a big band of kazoos, the amazing bamgwe zither, a capella vocals."

Here's an in-depth Afropop Worldwide article from 2020 that looks at Baird and SWP Records.

Check out the selection below, from Malawi Grooves, which features "Beti Kamanga playing his bangwe zither."

Our content is still free, but we've added a paid subscription option. If you’d like to support us that way, we’d be very grateful.