Recordiana is a Johannesburg based record label and music consultancy devoted to the discovery, digitisation and re-issuing of out-of-print South African recordings and advising on the history of recorded music in South Africa and the continent.

Founded by Rob Allingham and supported by Duncan Shelwell, Recordiana has to date released previously unavailable recordings by artists Johannes Mokgwadi, Ernest Rammutla, Tau Ea Matseka, Matsela Le Dihoba and David de Lange - and in doing do, have met the needs of communities eager to reconnect to music and artists that have not been heard in decades.

There is a significant amount of South African recorded music where no master tapes currently exist and the only copies remain in private collections. In the “pre-tape era” (before 1950), recordings were made direct to disc and have not ever been transferred to digital media. Additionally, a large number of tape masters have been lost or destroyed over the decades through mismanagement. Recordiana's aim is to finds these missing musical treasures and share them with interested music fans.

Rob Allingham is a veteran of the South African music industry and one of the foremost experts on the history of recorded music in South Africa. Rob served as the Archive Manager at Gallo Record Company from 1990 to 2008, overseeing a physical archive that is the largest on the African continent as well as a back catalogue that collectively comprises approximately 85% of all the recordings made in South Africa in the 20th century.
During that time he produced almost 200 CD reissues covering a wide range of South African music, many of which he also annotated. He wrote surveys on South African musical history for the first two editions of “The Rough Guide to World Music" and contributed other articles including one on the complex history of Miriam Makeba‟s international hit song, “Pata Pata”, that appeared in “African Music”, the journal of the International Library of African Music at Rhodes University.

Rob now works as an independent music consultant and researcher and is the founder of Recordiana, providing the expertise on the historical context for the artists and recordings that the label reissues, as well as often providing the source material for recordings where master recordings are no longer available. Rob was notably featured in the Netflix Original documentary “The Lion’s Share” detailing the extraordinary story of the origins of the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Rob was a key figure in the fight to finally recognise Solomon Linda as the original composer of the most recognisable musical element of the work. Rob has a degree in History from UC Berkeley.

Recordiana - An Introduction to Recordiana

RecordianaBy DJShelwellJun 02, 2021