Analog Africa's African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s as an opportunity to look at "digging in Africa's crates"?

Music from outside of Europe and North America has often been sold to the residents of those places with the promise of either cultural edification or palate-piquing exoticism. The former (ex: Nonesuch’s Explorer Series) tended to come packaged with quasi-anthropological documentation that caters to those who want to hear what once was; the others (ex: Putamayo) tend to be smoothed-out and spiffed-up so that they look and sound nice when you’re in line at the boutique checkout line. Recently, outfits like Analog Africa, which is run by a Tunisian-born, German-based DJ named Samy Ben Redjeb, take a third route that emphasizes a personal vision engaged with the local (as opposed to global) marketplace. In Redjeb’s case, he’s still digging into the past, but it’s a past that’s particularly compelling to one crate-digger with a taste for ’70s groove music. African Scream Contest’s execution, sketchy title aside, is a powerful argument for putting yourself in the hands of a man with good taste.

Also Popular African Music, Sound Way, the resurrected Strut, and Graeme Counsel's series of African music projects on Stern's/Syllart d: tracking down the original masters when available, finding the artists, and making sure they get paid.
Also the story of the Analog Africa label and its founder, a music-driven Tunisian-German called Samy Ben Redjeb, is. In the mid-1990s, Ben Redjeb was a diving instructor working in Senegal when an accidental exposure to a Thomas Mapfumo record triggered an epiphany. Slowly he worked his way round Africa’s record shops.