Record Store Day in Cairo, Egypt
Two dates to know: Record Store Day Black Friday is Friday, November 29, 2026, and the next main Record Store Day is Saturday, April 17, 2027.
What is Record Store Day?
Record Store Day is an annual event built around independent record stores. The main event traditionally lands on the third Saturday of April each year; Record Store Day Black Friday is traditionally held the day after US Thanksgiving. Both days bring exclusive, limited-run vinyl and CD releases sold only at participating independent shops — not big-box retailers, and not mail order until the in-store exclusives sell through. Because pressings are limited, popular titles can sell out within the first hour, which is why a line-early culture has grown up around the day even at shops that are otherwise quiet on a weekday morning.
Tips for the day
- Arrive early. At busy shops, lines for popular titles can start well before opening.
- Bring cash. A cash line often moves faster than card on a shop's highest-volume day of the year.
- Check each shop's own site or Instagram in the week before the date — participating shops post their own opening time, line policy, and which exclusive titles they've ordered in.
- Release lists are first-come, first-served and vary store to store. A title in stock at one shop may not show up at another, even across town.
- Expect one-per-customer or per-household limits on the most in-demand titles.
- Not every independent record store participates every year, and allocations vary shop to shop — confirm directly with the shop rather than assuming based on a past year.
Shops to check in Cairo, Egypt
Independent record shops open in Cairo, Egypt right now. We don't yet track which specific shops participate in Record Store Day or what they've ordered in for a given year — check each shop's own site or Instagram close to the date for their exclusive-release list, opening time, and line policy.
- Flex Music
Maadi records-and-CDs shop trading since 1999, mainly for serious collectors — first and early pressings including The Beatles and Pink Floyd among stock running up to the early 1980s, plus vintage guitars.
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- Mazzika Zaman
Zamalek record shop in the Masri Towers building on Bahgat Ali St, with ~15,000 rotating records spanning Arabic, jazz, blues and world music, plus vintage gramophones and amplifiers. Often called Cairo's oldest surviving record store.
3 sources
- Records Gallery Egypt - New Cairo
New Cairo villa location of Records Gallery Egypt, packed with Arabic and international vinyl, record players/gramophones and vintage movie posters and magazines; recent Instagram posts describe it as the brand's new headquarters.
3 sources
- Records Gallery Egypt - Zamalek
Zamalek/Nile Corniche branch of Records Gallery Egypt on the Ahl Masr walkway, with a large Arabic and Middle Eastern vinyl collection; shares a shopfront brand and phone line with the chain's New Cairo villa location.
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- Retrograde Records
Zamalek boutique run by Clint/Clinton, an American expat art teacher, mixing original fine art, refurbished vintage stereo equipment, books and a large selection of new and used vinyl records.
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- Sakanat Studio
Egypt's first electronic-music vinyl store, opened late 2017 inside Bardo Clubhouse in Maadi by DJs Mazen Aroussi and Karim El Sherbini. Buy, sell and swap house, techno, disco and minimal vinyl, plus vinyl-DJing lessons and studio sessions.
3 sources
- Seldom Records
Downtown Cairo record shop in Qasr El Nil, with an active Discogs marketplace storefront (seldomrecords) and Instagram account for its vinyl stock.
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- Sherry's Vinyl - Maadi
Maadi branch of Sherry's Vinyl (Tawfeeq Tower, 29 Mostafa Kamel St), Cairo's veteran crate-diggers' haven since 2007, stocking used vinyl from budget bins to rare Arabic and Western finds.
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- Sherry's Vinyl - Zamalek
Zamalek branch of Sherry's Vinyl, a crate-diggers' haven since 2007 on Abu Al Feda St, with an impressive Arabic collection of 45s and LPs alongside jazz, rock and classical, plus antiques and vintage collectibles.
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- Sono Cairo (Sawt al-Qahira)
State-owned label founded 1958 by composer Mohamed Fawzy; stopped pressing records in the 1980s but its Downtown Cairo office still sells off decades of unsold Egyptian and Western vinyl stock from rooms throughout the building.
3 sources
- Yellow Tape Records & Culture
Maadi record shop and music hub built around contemporary dance-music vinyl (house, techno, breakbeat, downtempo), running vinyl and digital DJ-mixing courses and wellness classes by appointment.
3 sources
See the full record store listing for Cairo, Egypt.