Radio is a Foreign Country
Welcome to RADIO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY!, a music discovery platform and online radio service. We are a loose group of explorers, collectors, and curators dedicated to discovering hidden gems buried in the trash heaps of history. Our approach to music curation and radio programming is grounded in a do-it-yourself ethos and an aesthetic inspired by ethnographic surrealism, which not only values fragments, curious collections, and unexpected juxtapositions but also seeks to bring out the revolutionary energies of outmoded things. Curated by humans not algorithms, our livestream follows a unique mixtape format where just about anything can happen and features cut-ups of international radio broadcasts (am, fm & shortwave), field recordings, ethnographic film, vintage records & cassettes, and digital ephemera from the far reaches of the internet. Our mission is to explore forgotten and new ways of making radio and to facilitate greater access and exposure to sounds and music not sufficiently documented by the commercial music industry. The organization’s primary activities include music and cultural exploration & research, collecting, preservation, education and community events.
RIAFC began life in 2018 as a homemade mixtape series. Since then, we have collaborated with private collectors, archives, field recordists, sound artists and small, independent labels to produce over 150 curated mixtapes of rare ceremonial, folk, and pop music from all over the world. Our mixtapes have captivated listeners, amassing nearly half a million plays on streaming platforms. In April 2021, we launched our 24/7 internet radio stream, which attracts around 15,000 listeners per week. RIAFC also broadcasts on terrestrial radio station WXDR 99.1 FM (New Orleans, LA, 2018 – present) and, until recently, Resonance FM 104.4 FM (London, U.K.) (2018-2021). RIAFC has been featured by the Attic Magazine (Bucharest, Romania), Radio Garden (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), EastEast Radio (Moscow, Russia) Stegi Radio | Onassis Foundation (Athens, Greece), Landline Newsletter (Seattle, WA), WIRED Magazine’s Gadget Lab, Radio Elsewheres (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Wireless at Flirt FM (Galway, Irleand),Radio Olisipo (Lisbon, Portugal), Soho Radio (London/New York City), WRMI-Radio Miami International (shortwave), the Gambit (New Orleans) and more. On August 28, 2025, Radio is a Foreign Country was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal's Off Duty lifestyle section.
For inquiries and submissions, please contact us at:info@radioisaforeigncountry.org
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KENNETH ROUTON
Founder & Director
Kenneth Routon was born and raised in a working-class family in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. He is a cultural anthropologist by training with a focus on West Africa & the Caribbean and the author of the ehtnographic monograph Hidden Powers of State in the Cuban Imagination. He has taught anthropology at several universities across the country, including Wesleyan University and the University of New Orleans. In 2024, he worked with the legendary independent label Sublime Frequencies to curate & produce the vinyl LP, "Music for Shape-Shifters: Field Recordings from the Amazonian Lowlands, 1981-1985."
LISBETH PEDROSO
Board of Directors, President
Chief of Staff & Director of Operations – Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Engagement – City of New Orleans
Lisbeth Pedroso was born and raised in the colonial township & municipality of Guanabacoa in Havana, Cuba. She grew up in the heart of a thriving cultural and music scene that included rumba, timba and Afro-Cuban religious music. She is passionate about giving back to the community that raised her and, in 2023, she organized and led a group of residents from New Orleans to the island where they personally donated food and other essential goods to needy families in her old barrio.
VERA GUTMANN
Board of Directors, Secretary
Grant Writer & Researcher – Wild Fundraising (New Orleans)
Vera Gutmann was born and raised in the Philippines to a Filipina mother and an Austrian father. She immigrated at age 8. A historian by training, she has shared her research on the history of Africans in the Americas at numerous national and international conferences. Her volunteer work includes teaching English as a Second Language to refugees, serving on the board of a nonprofit fair trade retailer, and working as a historical reenactor for school groups in New Orleans' French Quarter.
GITI FARUDI
Board of Directors, Treasurer
Department of Languages – Xavier University of Louisiana
Giti Farudi was born to an Iranian father and an American mother. She has a lifelong passion for languages, travel, and global engagement. She has served as Head of the Department of Languages at Xavier University of Louisiana since 2016 and has been a faculty member in the department since 2010. Among her notable accomplishments is the creation of Xavier’s first faculty-led study abroad program. Under her leadership, the program has expanded to include a medical shadowing and observational component in both public and private hospitals in Costa Rica. She is deeply committed to global education and to designing meaningful, immersive international experiences that broaden students’ academic and cultural perspectives.