South African History Archive (Shifty Records Project Collection)

Shifty Records was founded by Lloyd Ross and Ivan Kadey in the early 1980s. It is known for recording and releasing a wide variety of music from artists such as Sankomota, the Genuines, the Kalahari Surfers, Urban Creep, James Phillips (known as Bernoldus Niemand), Vusi Mahlasela, and Simba Morris.

The organisation has a collection of music archives which are in urgent need of digitization to a stable medium, as the formats of many of its historic audio recordings are deteriorating rapidly. In addition, there is a significant collection of video, photographic and documentary materials in need of digitisation so as to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of this rich collection of historical materials.
The initial element of the project is the digitisation of the archive, a process already initiated by South African History Archive (SAHA) with initial funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies. This project is conceptualised as the research phase of a longer-term outreach project that will use the research gathered in the project to engage with young music students to research and collect additional information relating to this rich period of musical and political history in South Africa, through the 1980s. The project is also meant to ultimately produce and disseminate a publication, with accompanying CD and online repository of the Shifty Records archive.

Shifty Records partnered with the Alliance Française of Johannesburg and the South African History Archives (SAHA) to conceive "Shifty September", a month-long programme of exhibitions, documentary screenings, panel discussions and concerts that aim to consider the role of protest music in the making of democracy in South Africa.

SAHA's archives of South Africa's history of "musical activism" are available to the public during September at exhibitions at the Alliance Française in Parkview, Johannesburg. The aim of this project is to preserve, organise, research and make accessible the endangered archive of Shifty Records, a South African record label committed to documenting and supporting the anti-apartheid movement through music and song.