David Byrne - Other Work

Other Work

Byrne founded the world music record label Luaka Bop in 1990. It was originally created to release Latin American compilations, but it has grown to include music from Cuba, Africa, the Far East and beyond, releasing the work of artists such as Cornershop, Os Mutantes, Los De Abajo, Jim White, Zap Mama, Tom Zé, Los Amigos Invisibles and King Chango.

In 2005, Byrne initiated his own internet radio station, Radio David Byrne. Each month, Byrne posts a playlist of music he likes, linked by themes or genres. Byrne's playlists have included African popular music, country music classics, Vox Humana, classical opera, and film scores from Italian movies.

In 2006, Byrne released Arboretum, a sketchbook facsimile of his Tree Drawings, published by McSweeney's. Byrne is also a visual artist whose work has been shown in contemporary art galleries and museums around the world since the 1990s. Represented by the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York, he has also created public art installations, many of them anonymously. In 2010 his original art work was in the exhibition The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.