Radio Simba is an examination of the colliding borders of entrepeneurship, commerce and
the passion for music worldwide. It seems wherever I travel, there’s a guy and a boombox
of some type playing music to entertain the locals. The poorer the place, the more ingenuity
goes into powering them.
In Africa I’ve seen these radios powered by old car batteries, I’ve
seen solar panels hard at work supplying juice to vintage jam box’s grabbing reggae beats
from the airwaves through coat hanger antenna’s. I’ve listened to fourth or fifth generation
mix tapes spun to life in the apparatus of a bar room boombox.
All these radios have a common
theme of escapism, but they also share a bond of having come from a roadside vendor trying
to make a living. The roadside vendor is usually a middle man selling for another supplier even
higher up on the chain. I’ve been documenting these vendors in my travels.
They are a feisty
bunch, with personalities often equally as loud as the merchandise they sell.
Lyle Owerko
Check out Lyle's other work
http://www.owerko.com/
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