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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Shah Meer Baloch in Peshawar

‘The love for music is still there’: saving the sounds of Afghanistan one cassette at a time

Taliban Afghanistan Shah Meer Baloch Muslim Pakistan
Man sitting in a tiny shop crowded with a TV and cassette players and music cassettes on shelves lining the walls.
Afghan refugee Mohammed Hasan Zamri in his shop in Peshawar where he keeps his collection of rare music cassettes from his homeland. Photograph: Shah Meer Baloch

Afghan music fans from Kabul and Jalalabad have crossed the border to the city of Peshawar in Pakistan to offer thousands of rupees to Mohammed Hasan Zamri’s workshop for just one cassette.

Zamri, an Afghan refugee, refuses them all as he continues his quest to copy and, one day he hopes, digitise his collection of more than 1,000 rare and old Afghan music cassettes of various genres.

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