Shortly after it was launched in 2020, the Instagram-based project Archives Ivoire received a major boost when the French-Malian superstar Aya Nakamura reshared a meme it had made from the series Nafi, one of Francophone Africa’s most beloved TV shows, to her millions of followers.
In the years since, Archives Ivoire, which documents the female aesthetic in Ivorian pop culture, has amassed 85,000 followers, started hosting cinema club sessions in the Ivorian city of Abidjan and the neighbouring town of Grand-Bassam, and launched a successful sideline in merchandise.
Much of the archive is dedicated to the 2000’s Y2K female aesthetic of low-rise boot-cut jeans with chain belts, which was popularised in parts of Africa by Nollywood actors inspired by pop stars such as Destiny’s Child and Christina Aguilera. Ivorian stars also rocked the style and built a cult following in Francophone Africa.
“I started it to say: ‘Look at what my country did for the audiovisual world,’” said Marie-Hélène Banimbadio Tusiama, the project’s founder.
Cédric Kouamé, who runs an archive of Ivorian music, is also driven by personal passion and a sense of patriotic responsibility, in a country that’s home to just a few record stores and museums.
Tucked away a couple of streets from the belly of Cocovico market in Abidjan, where merchants and buyers engage over the din of rap ivoire, zouglou and coupé-décalé, the most popular Ivorian music genres, the Baoulécore Archive centre pays homage to an older era of music. Hundreds of records and cassettes from Ivorian icons such as Reine Pélagie and Daouda le Sentimental are stacked on shelves alongside other Black musicians such as Sun Ra and Youssou N’Dour.
“About 95% of the archive is music from Black people to Black people,” said Kouamé, a multidisciplinary artist, as he leans over an analogue mixer board.
“We have to document it. The west has already documented Pink Floyd, the Beatles – and copies are already in museums. But much of our own material is disappearing,” added the 32-year-old, who is better known by his DJ and music producer alias, African Diplomat.
Though their mediums differ, the ethos is the same for Kouamé and Tusiama: Africans documenting African stories. “It’s the duty of each African to take the seeds, to record the information,” Kouamé said.
Kouamé, the son of a microbiologist father from Ivory Coast – whose petri dishes piqued his curiosity – and a teacher mother from Guadeloupe, soon found he loved to collect things.
While studying in Europe, he stumbled on to a Los Angeles-based music platform whose online chatrooms connected him to a global network of music enthusiasts. By the time he was at art school, he was collecting vinyl to trace the origins of the samples he heard on the radio.
Baoulécore – named after a language spoken by a sixth of all Ivorians – opened in 2023, seeded by the collection of Kouamé’s late uncle, a medical doctor who amassed vinyl during field missions across Africa. Visitors come by appointment only, ensuring they can browse, listen and read without hurry.
Kouamé plays music for them on an old Philips turntable, recounting anecdotes about the artists, their tours, and the politics of their time. On a nearby stand sits his late grandfather’s JVC Videosphere, a television shaped like an astronaut’s helmet.
He advertises in newspapers and on radio, asking for leads on forgotten records and players.
Quality records are scarce, often damaged or overpriced. “Record digging is becoming a rich people’s sport,” Kouamé said, citing Zamrock LPs that now retail for thousands of dollars. “Most of the best-quality originals from the 70s and 80s aren’t in Africa any more – they’re in Europe and America, selling for way more.”
Tusiama’s interest in preservation was shaped by her background, too. Her mother, who worked in science, was often on the road, but encouraged her curiosity. “When I first started Archive Ivoire, she was my first supporter,” said Tusiama.
Both projects collaborate with fellow art enthusiasts and have ambitions to scale up. Kouamé has hosted listening sessions with visiting researchers, and lent rare LPs to exhibitions. He hopes to expand Baoulécore into a space that can also host live performances and workshops on sound preservation.
Tusiama is working on archives on sportswomen and wants to collaborate with videographers and photographers on nostalgia projects about forgotten west African cinema.
During the African Nations’ Cup football tournament in Ivory Coast last year, she kept running into people wearing Archives Ivoire crop tops, and felt vindicated. She, too, wants to do more, even on the subject of the civil wars that have shaped the country’s political landscape. “I’m trying to research how an era like that can shape the body and how we dress and what we wear,” she said.
