before Anghami, Spotify Playlists and TikTok sounds are ubiquitous, there was the soft click of a cassette tape sliding into place, the hum of tape rewinding, and album covers telling stories before a single note was played. Across Egypt, these tapes carried the voices, aesthetics, and identities of an entire generation. Today, much of it is lost, forgotten in drawers, abandoned studios, or sold at flea markets.
But one man is trying to bring them back.
For artist and researcher Amr HamedThe cassette is evidence of a cultural history that has never been properly preserved. Hamid does not treat the cassette as a metaphorical nostalgia. “In fact, I hate nostalgia,” he says. “It is a trite, naive and superficial perspective, especially when working to preserve the past.” Through him Egyptian Cassette Archive On Instagram, Hamed is reclaiming an almost invisible chapter of Egypt’s artistic past, one cover, one tape, one story at a time.
It is an Instagram account that posts daily photos of different cassette tapes with the song attached in the background. In each post, Hameed gives commentary credit to the artists who worked on the cassette including the designer, lyricist, and singer.
“It started out as curiosity,” Hamed says. “When I found my old cassette tapes…I started asking questions about the designers who made these beautiful works of art, and I didn’t have any answers.”
The mystery behind the covers
Hamid, a 2009 graduate of fine arts from Helwan University, was drawn not only to the music, but to the art of cassette tape covers including the typography, calligraphy and visual language that defined the era. However, as he delved deeper, he encountered the alarming fact that most of the designers behind these works were virtually unknown and were extremely difficult to find.
“Most of the designers were fairly unknown,” he explains. “When I asked people in the art scene…no one could lead me to anything.”
The absence of documentation became the driving force behind the archive. The project began in 2016 and appeared online on Instagram in 2020 as a personal investigation, and has since evolved into a large-scale cultural project, which now contains over 10,000 cassette tapes, along with many related materials, and is still growing.
Tracing a disappearing generation
Building the archive has never been easy. Many of the artists Hamid searches for are elderly, making the process a race against time.
“Time is my number one enemy,” he admits. “Most of these people are old… and I fear they would die if they were still alive.”
Without a digital footprint to rely on, Hamed developed his own unconventional research methods. Instead of searching for the artists themselves, he often tracks down their families.
“I started looking for people around the name, not the name itself,” he says. “So, I might be able to find their son or daughter easily online.”
This approach has led to unexpected encounters, some warm and others wary. “Sometimes relatives have more questions than I do,” he laughs. “They get suspicious, and they say things like: ‘What do you need from us?’
However, more often than not, these interactions turn into moments of connection, as families open up their homes and sometimes their archives.
In one case, Hamid gained access to an old production company laboratory that had been untouched for decades.
“It was really dusty…like an abandoned place,” he recalls. “And I found treasures.”
Inside were original design materials, including handcrafted collage artwork from the pre-Photoshop era and rare artwork revealing the painstaking craftsmanship behind the production of cassette tapes.
“These are the real archives,” he says. “It’s not just the cassette you can buy, it’s the only original piece you can’t find anywhere else.”
When a research project enhances the used goods market
As the archive’s Instagram page gained momentum, Hamed began to notice that the tapes he had been saving suddenly became commodities.
He says: “I can say with confidence… that my project has effectively contributed to strengthening the market for used cassette tapes in Egypt.”
Cassette tapes that once sold for just a few Egyptian pounds are now sold at significantly higher prices, sometimes overnight.
“I noticed that there were specific cassettes that spread on my page… and the demand for them in the market increased later… The price of some of these cassette tapes reached 1,500 Egyptian pounds (30 US dollars),” he explains. “That’s a crazy price for one bar.”
In some cases, a single publication is enough to send collectors scrambling, reshaping the value of items that were, until recently, on the verge of being discarded.
Just scratch the surface
While the archive is thriving on Instagram, Hamed is quick to point out that social media is only the surface.
He explains: “Instagram for me… is an entertainment platform.” “The goal is to get people engaged with their heritage…reminiscing about their memories, or even discovering new arts, artists and musical genres.”
Deeper work such as interviews, rare materials and research is being prepared for a dedicated website and future publications, including potential books.
“I like the book format more than digital,” he says. “But I will present everything in a searchable way…for researchers, artists and the public.”
Conservation ethics
Unlike many digital archivists, Hamed is keenly aware of copyright and ownership, especially when it comes to music.
“I’m familiar with copyright rules,” he says firmly. “I won’t use materials that aren’t mine…even if no one asks me about them.”
For Hamid, preserving culture is not just about access, but also about respect. Hamid usually posts on Instagram the cassette cover with the song’s audio attached in the background. However, he only posts it if the song is available in his Instagram audio library and will never post a song that is not available online even if he finds several bars of it for copyright reasons.
Building for the future
The Instagram account started as a solo initiative but is now expanding into a much larger project. Hamed is currently developing a comprehensive project: the Egyptian Cultural Heritage Archive, which will include collections on cinema, theatre, stamps and more.
“We do not have an archive in Egypt on visual culture,” he says. “This is crazy.”
His long-term goal is to turn the project into an enterprise that can outlive it.
“I want the archive to outlive me,” he says.
At its core, the Egyptian Cassette Archive is not just about preservation, but about reconnecting people with their cultural histories.
“For me, people have the right to enjoy their culture,” Hamed says. “To discover it, to remember it, to learn from it.”
For a younger generation encountering these sounds and visuals for the first time, the archive offers something rare: a bridge between past and present.
“they [the younger generation] “They discover what they missed,” he says. “And that’s the important point.”
