Discogs are creating a digital directory of Black-owned record stores

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Discogs are creating a digital directory of Black-owned record stores.

Launched in the Discogs forums, Forum user bekessler (aka Ben Kessler from Washington, D.C.) asked Forum contributors to submit information about Black-owned record stores. 

The current list features 34 record stores across America, with both Kessler and Discogs urging vinyl lovers to add their favourite Black-owned stores to the sheet.

“The basis for the list was a list of 10 Black-owned record stores Okayplayer published a few months ago,” Kessler wrote to Discogs. “The article that accompanied the list focused on the struggles that small businesses were facing in the early weeks of commercial shutdowns. After the murder of George Floyd, it became common to share lists of Black-owned businesses serving particular cities or interests. People were already doing their best to stay loyal to their favorite small business — record store or otherwise. And as mainstream America turned its attention to the indiscriminate murder of Black people by the police, I think many people began thinking about how they spent their money differently.”

Among the stores featured are 606 Records in Chicago, Fivespace in San Diego (pictured), and New York’s Moodies Records and The Mixtape Shop.

You can view and add to the Black-owned record stores sheet here.

One of the most exciting new digital projects to emerge this year, Black Band Camp (blackbandcamp.info) is a volunteer-run, community-driven database for showcasing and directly supporting Black artists. What started out as a Google sheet shared between friends and peers has quickly become an industry-wide platform; a fully integrated website of over 2,400 multi-genre, globally-placed Black artists. DJ Mag spoke to one of the organisers, NIKS, about the project.