Sajjad archives songs for four decade and says won't give up

Variety 12:25 PM - 2021-03-08

Photo Credit: Zamnako Yahyay

Nihad Sajjad, a citizen residing in the Kalar district of the Kurdistan Region's Garmian administration, has been collecting and archiving songs for four decades at his record store in Kalar, 135.4 km south of Sulaymaniyah.

 

About his hobby, Sajjad told PUKmedia that he has been buying song cassettes and CDs since 1970 to preserve them and archive the old songs.

 

Sajjad was born in 1964 and he is originally from the disputed Khanaqin, but he lives in the Kalar district.

 

His house does not accommodate his large archive of cassette tapes and CDs that he has collected. He has CDs in every corner of his house.

 

He archived songs are in various languages ​​like Kurdish, Farsi, English, Hindi and Turkish.

 

Sajjad says that he is a music lover and listens to most of the songs on a daily basis and repeats them at the same time. 

 

He is the largest and oldest archiver of audio and video recordings in the area, he said: "It is true that this does not provide a living for me, but this has been my hobby from an early age that is why I will continue this profession and will not give it up."

 

It is noteworthy that Khanaqin is part of the areas that were subjected to dangerous Arabization process that the fallen Baath regime of Saddam Hussein was planning to eliminate the Kurds. This fact is mentioned in the Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution.

 

Most Kurds from those areas fled to other parts of the Kurdistan Region.

 

 

 

PUKmedia