WE ARE NOT A SERVICE PROVIDER. WE ARE A PLATFORM FOR INSURGENT MEMORY.

Since 1995 in Berlin, Tropical Diaspora Records® has existed not as a business but as a political and cultural project. We produce our own records to narrate the stories of forced African migration, the encounter with Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the cultural expressions born from horror and hope.

We now extend this capacity to artists worldwide—not as a commercial venture, but as an act of means provision. If your work speaks truth to power, if your music carries the memory of the dispossessed, if you refuse to become a puppet in the colonial machinery of "World Music"—then we offer you the same tools we use ourselves.

COMPLETE MUSIC PRODUCTION — FROM FIRST NOTE TO FINISHED RELEASE

We understand that not every artist arrives with a finished master. The journey from inspiration to physical artifact is long, and the colonial industry has built barriers at every stage—expensive studios, inaccessible producers, distribution gatekeepers who decide who gets heard.

We remove those barriers.

Through our global network of trusted partners—studios, engineers, producers, and musicians across the diaspora—we can oversee or connect you with the right people for every stage of your project. You retain complete control. We provide the means.

Production Stages We Can Facilitate

How It Works

1. You tell us your vision. What sound do you carry? What story needs to be told?

2. We propose partners. From our network, we recommend the right studios, engineers, and producers for your project and budget.

3. You choose. You select who you want to work with. You maintain direct communication. You retain full creative control.

4. We coordinate. We handle logistics, scheduling, payments—so the creative work flows without interruption.

5. You receive your masters. Ready for digital distribution, vinyl pressing, or cassette duplication—or all three.

We do not own your music. We do not take publishing. We do not ask for points. We provide means, not masters.

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION — YOUR MUSIC, EVERYWHERE, ON YOUR TERMS

The physical artifact is sacred—but we also know that the diaspora lives in the digital realm. Your music must reach listeners on streaming platforms, in playlists, across social media, and through every channel where our people gather.

We offer complete digital distribution for all releases we produce or manufacture. Through our partnerships with global digital distributors, your music reaches:

Streaming Platforms

• Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora

• Regional platforms across Africa, Latin America, and the diaspora

Download Stores

• iTunes, Beatport, Bandcamp, Juno, Traxsource

• Direct-to-fan sales through your own website

Social Media & Discovery

• Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat—your music available for creator use

• Shazam, SoundCloud, Audiomack—meeting listeners where they discover

What We Provide

The Integration — Physical + Digital

Your release does not have to choose between formats. With Tropical Diaspora Records, you can:

1. Produce the music through our global studio network

2. Release digitally to every platform worldwide

3. Press vinyl and cassettes in Germany's finest plants

4. Distribute physically through our diaspora network

5. Keep everything—all rights, all revenue, all control

THE WEAPON: ANALOG MEDIA + GERMAN ENGINEERING

We produce our records in Germany, using the most advanced pressing plants in the world. This is not irony. This is strategy.

Germany, the nation that formalized the slave trade through its Brandenburg African Company (1682), that carved up Africa at the Berlin Conference (1884-85), that committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples (1904-1908)—this same Germany now produces the most precise, most durable, most sonically perfect vinyl on earth.

And this same Germany today offers unconditional political and military support to the ongoing genocide in Gaza—providing weapons, diplomatic cover, and funding for the mass killing of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, hospitals, and universities, the starvation of an entire population, and the systematic erasure of Palestinian existence.

We do not look away.

We name it.

We hold this truth alongside our work, because to pretend otherwise would be to become what we oppose—the ones who see and say nothing while atrocities are committed in our name, from the land where we operate.

We take Germany's technology. We use its precision. We turn its instruments toward our purpose: the preservation and amplification of the very voices it once tried to silence—and the voices it arms others to silence today.

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." — Audre Lorde

True. But they can build our own. — Tropical Diaspora Records

Every record we press moves through:

• Modern lacquer cutting in state-of-the-art Berlin facilities

• High-definition stampers from the world's most advanced electroforming plants

• Precision presses that deliver vinyl with tolerances measured in microns

• German quality control—the same rigorous standards applied to weapons systems applied to your music

We do not romanticize poverty. We do not fetishize "authentic" low fidelity. We give your narrative the best possible material form that industrial capitalism can produce—then we reclaim that form for our own purposes.

The factories that could be producing shells are producing stampers. The engineering that could be designing drones is cutting lacquers. We are here, in this contradiction, every day.

We do not resolve it. We use it.

Every record we press moves through:

• Modern lacquer cutting in state-of-the-art Berlin facilities

• High-definition stampers from the world's most advanced electroforming plants

• Precision presses that deliver vinyl with tolerances measured in microns

• German quality control—the same rigorous standards applied to luxury automobiles applied to your music

We do not romanticize poverty. We do not fetishize "authentic" low fidelity. We give your narrative the best possible material form that industrial capitalism can produce—then we reclaim that form for our own purposes.

COMPLETE FORMAT GUIDE — EVERY OPTION FOR YOUR NARRATIVE

Thirty years of producing our own catalog has taught us every possibility that vinyl and cassette offer. Below is everything we can create for you.

VINYL RECORDS — All Formats

VINYL WEIGHT OPTIONS

VINYL COLOR — Every Color Imaginable

PACKAGING — The Vessel for Your Story

INNER SLEEVES & INSERTS

• Inner Sleeves: Standard paper, poly-lined, die-cut, printed

• Inserts: Lyric booklets, posters, download cards, stickers, woven patches, buttons

• OBI Strips: Traditional Japanese-style wrap-around bands

CASSETTE TAPES — The Format of the Streets

CASSETTE PACKAGING

ADDITIONAL SERVICES — Complete Fulfillment

OUR DISTRIBUTION NETWORK — THE DIASPORA SPEAKING TO ITSELF

We have spent thirty years building something the colonial industry does not understand and cannot replicate: a distribution network based on ideology, not commerce.

Our contacts are not "accounts." They are:

• Community radio stations across the diaspora

• Independent record shops run by children of the Diaspora

• Cultural centers in cities where our people have settled

• Musicians, DJs, activists who move records through their networks

• Festivals that center our narratives

• Academic institutions teaching the histories our music documents

• Museums finally ready to collect our cultural artifacts

When you produce with us, you gain access to thirty years of trust. We do not sell you a distribution contract. We invite you into a network—a network of people who move our music because they believe in what we do.

The colonial distributor asks: "How many units will this sell?"

We ask: "Who needs to hear this? And how do we reach them?"

Where Your Records Go

Our network spans:

• Europe — key cities with independent shops and community radio

• Brazil — from Salvador to São Paulo, connecting with cultural spaces

• Africa — Lusophone Africa and beyond, through trusted partners

• North America — diasporic communities in major cities

• Beyond — reaching collectors and communities wherever they are

THE LOGISTICS OF INSURGENCY

Our Berlin facility receives your masters. Our German pressing partners manufacture your records. Our warehouse prepares your shipment. And then:

• Direct to you: We ship your allocation anywhere in the world

• Through our network: We place your records in the hands of people who will play them, sell them, champion them

• To your community: We help you reach the diaspora directly—bypassing the gatekeepers who have always decided who gets heard

THE PARADOX WE HOLD

We use German technology to press African and Indigenous music. We distribute through a network built on trust, not contracts. We communicate in the colonizer's languages because they are the only ones that reach across the diaspora.

We hold this contradiction without resolving it.

The alternative is silence. And we refuse silence.

NOT A TRANSACTION — A CONVERSATION

We do not have a "quote request form." We have an invitation.

If your music carries the memory of the dispossessed, if you refuse the Marco Polo's syndrome of being represented by those who claim to know you better than you know yourself—then contact us.

Tell us your story. Tell us what you carry. Tell us what narrative you need to press into vinyl.

Whether you need:

• A complete production from composition to finished master

• Digital distribution to every platform worldwide

• Vinyl and cassette manufacturing in German pressing plants

• Access to our diaspora distribution network

• Any combination of the above

We will respond not as a company, but as comrades in the struggle for insurgent memory.

✉️ Contact us for a quote: click here

"The colonialist builds factories to manufacture products. We use those same factories to manufacture memory."

reproduction authorized.