‘A journey through the past’: lost music of the Palestinian uprising is restored

Mo’min Swaitat uncovered 10,000 tapes in the West Bank during lockdown, and digitised Riad Awwad’s intifada album

As Covid-19 swept across the world in the spring of 2020, Mo’min Swaitat, a Palestinian actor and filmmaker living in London, found himself stranded in his hometown, the West Bank city of Jenin. On walks through the quiet streets, he was drawn to the shuttered Tariq Cassettes, a music shop and record label he remembered from childhood that had closed down years ago.

Intrigued, Swaitat got in touch with the former owner, who let him while away the days of the pandemic searching through the dusty archive of tape cassettes on the second floor. In the process, he uncovered a treasure trove: long-forgotten music that animated Palestinian life during the 1980s, when the first intifada (uprising) broke out.