The Sound of Cairo
by Dr. Maged El-Bialy
The Sound Of Cairo, (Sot El Qahira) is a music shop located
downtown in Cairo. The Shop has been around for 30 years and is
one of the first outlets for the National Record Company (Sot El
Qahira) "Sound Of Cairo". You might wonder what is so
special about a record shop. It is a special place for those who
are admirers of oriental genuine tunes. The shop offers all
types of old Arabic albums. You can find all the albums of the
Egyptian musical legends, like Om Kulthoum, Abdel Whahab, and
Fareed El Atrash. If you are a collector of Arabic music you can
certainly complete your set from this shop or even buy the whole
set either on tapes or CD’s. As for prices, one CD may range
from 25 L.E (US$ 7) to 40 L.E (US$10) and tapes may range from 5
L.E (US$ 1) to 10 L.E. (US$ 2.5), so money is not the issue!
Besides audiotapes you can also find videotapes that are in
numerous collections of historical, political and religious
documentaries. You can also find complete sets of old Arabic TV
serials, even some with English subtitles. One video documentary
that attracted me was "The Secrets of the Pyramids".
There were Arabic, English and French copies of these
documentaries.
I asked the manager, Mr. Salah Ahmad, if he ever received
foreign customers and his answer was that he always gets a lot
of tourists to come in and buy tapes and CD’s. There are of
course more Arab customers than non-Arab but there are a lot of
French customers who always look for old Arabic music reproduced
from vinyl recordings to CD’s.
The shop is not a fancy place, nor is it decorated in a
special style but rather plain and simple. There are simple
shelves with hundreds of tapes and CD’s. What attracted me
about the shop design is the number of mirrors put up in the
walls. I felt I was in a Fun House for a moment!
Sot El Qahira is very well known by downtown dwellers. It is
located in 3, Borsa El Gedida St, off Kasr El Nil St.downtown.
Next time you are downtown Cairo, and in the mood to buy an
Arabic musical tape old or new, just drop by the Sot El Kahira
Shop to get your request.
Address: 3 El Borsa El Gedida St.,
Off Kasr El nil St.
Tel.: 202 3913252
