100COPIES
Cairo record label and music space founded in 2006 by Mahmoud Refaat, an early backer of Egyptian mahraganat; acquired by Reservoir Media and PopArabia in 2022.
- Based in
- Cairo, Egypt
- Founded
- 2006
- Founder
- Mahmoud Refaat
- Website
- 100copies.bandcamp.com
100COPIES is a record label and independent music space in downtown Cairo, founded in 2006 by the producer Mahmoud Refaat. Its name comes from an early practice of pressing a limited run of copies for sale inside Egypt alongside a separate run for international distributors. The premises house recording and rehearsal studios, a vinyl-cutting room and a live stage, and the label built its catalogue around Egyptian electronic, experimental and mahraganat music.
100COPIES was an early backer of mahraganat, the street-electronic genre that surfaced in Cairo around 2011, and released the duo El Sawareekh, whose track “Laa” passed 100 million views on YouTube. That catalogue drew the attention of larger rights buyers as the genre reached audiences across the Arab world and its diaspora.
In May 2022 the label was acquired by Reservoir Media and PopArabia, the Abu Dhabi publisher through which the Nasdaq-listed Reservoir operates across the Middle East and North Africa. The two companies also formed a joint venture with 100COPIES to sign and develop Egyptian talent. The precise shape of the label’s ownership after the deal has not been detailed publicly; what is established is the acquisition and the joint venture announced at that time.
