This week I’m excited to welcome back Alexandria Sade, Founder of Black Girls Love Vinyl (BGLV), as we launch a brand new series called Second Spin, a chance to reconnect with the women featured on Vinylettes over the years and see where their vinyl journeys have taken them.
Through BGLV, Alexandria has built a platform where Black women collectors can see themselves reflected in vinyl culture, and where record collecting is viewed through the lens of art preservation.
In our conversation, Alexandria reflects on the growth of BGLV, taking the community beyond Instagram and into real life through listening parties, gatherings, even group trips, and how her own crate digging habits have shifted along the way.
Hey Alexandria, welcome back to Vinylettes – it’s been a minute! When we last spoke in 2019, Black Girls Love Vinyl was in its early days and now it’s a thriving community. Fill us in!
It really has been a minute and so much has happened! When we last spoke, BGLV was still finding its footing, mostly living on Instagram and fueled by pure love for the culture. Since then it’s grown into a full platform. We’ve hosted IRL listening and audiophile events across multiple cities, partnered with some amazing artists and organizations like Estelle, Janelle James, BadBadNotGood, Charlotte Day Wilson and even took a group of ladies to Brazil with us. We’ve built a real archive of 150+ recorded music and ephemera that I’ve started sharing on our socials, and overall created a community of collectors, music lovers, and cultural stewards who genuinely show up for each other. It’s a lot to hold in the best way.
“It’s the moments of a member inheriting her grandparents’ records and building a collection from that, or a first-time collector buying her first pressing with confidence. That’s the heartbeat of it.”
BGLV has grown into something really special – how would you describe the spirit of the community and what does its success mean to you personally?
The spirit is warmth, curiosity, and a deep sense of belonging. BGLV exists at this intersection of Blackness, femininity, and vinyl culture — a space that didn’t really exist in this way before we made it. What moves me most is that women show up and immediately feel like, oh, this was always for me. Personally, the success means that the instinct I had in 2018 that this story needed to be told and held was right. That matters. But more than milestones, it’s the moments of a member inheriting her grandparents’ records and building a collection from that, or a first-time collector buying her first pressing with confidence. That’s the heartbeat of it.
Why do you think spaces like BGLV and Vinylettes are so important within vinyl culture and the wider music industry?
The default story of vinyl culture has historically centered a very specific kind of collector and it’s left a lot of people out of the narrative. Black women have always loved music deeply, have always been record buyers, have always been in the crates. BGLV and Vinylettes exist to make women visible and to give those collectors community and context. In the wider industry, representation behind the scenes in publishing, at labels, and even in vinyl industry roles and conversations still has some ways to go. Spaces like ours pipeline the next generation of industry professionals while also saying your taste, your knowledge, your collection matters.
How has your own relationship with vinyl changed since launching BGLV?
It’s gotten more intentional and more reverent. I used to dig mostly by feel of what catches my eye and what calls to me. Now I dig with an archivist’s eye too. I’m thinking about documentation, about which records tell an undertold story, about what deserves to be preserved and shared. There’s also just more responsibility to it. When you’re building a platform around vinyl culture, every record you hold is a potential entry point into someone else’s history. I love that weight.
Are you still crate digging as much as before, any recent standout finds?
Always! It’s a non-negotiable for me, though the intention has shifted. Recently I’ve been particularly drawn to spoken word and poetry records by Black women. The Folkways catalog has been a treasure for that. I’ve also been deep in gospel records, working on completing my Lonnie Liston Smith collection (almost there), and supporting Hip-Hop records in this moment too. Those finds remind me why this work matters.
What’s your vision for the future of BGLV? Are there any upcoming projects, events, or collaborations we should know about?
The long-term vision is something I always plan for, and I want the work we’re doing now to reflect that foundation. As far as what’s coming — I have some really exciting things in motion, and I’m being tender and holding them with deep care to seeing them all unfold. What I’ll say is, stay on the lookout and subscribe to the newsletter. That’s where all our exclusives drop first and we do special events just for subscribers. That’s the place to be.
What are your current “desert island discs” — have they changed since 2019?
Some anchors stay forever and certain records just live in my bones!! But my list has deepened. My entire Lonnie Liston Smith collection, because his music has honestly saved my life since the beginning of this record collecting journey. My Sade box set, because her voice and the band feels like they were recorded just for you. And the records I’ve inherited from my grandfather because those truly reflect identity and lineage for me. Those are the ones that remind me why analog matters.
Which artists are you loving right now and think deserve more attention?
I stay pretty rooted in catalog, but I pay close attention to artists making work with that same timeless, embodied quality. I’d rather not name-drop a list, but I’d just say to follow people who are making music that feels like it was made for listening, not just streaming. The artists I gravitate toward tend to be quieter voices of singers, writers, composers, producers whose work doesn’t rely on spectacle. If it sounds like something you’d want on vinyl, that’s my cue.
Follow Alexandria over on Instagram.
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