To grapple with the profound feelings of loneliness, alienation, and depression that overwhelmed him in the aftermath of the Great Quake of ’92, XPURM turned to the melancholic melodies of his piano. The keys became his confidants, the somber tunes a mirror of his inner turmoil. With each note, he poured out his heart, capturing the raw emotion on cassette tapes — these recordings would become the silent witnesses to his private suffering.
As XPURM’s collection of tapes grew, his plan to leave Egypt began to take form. The music, while a solace, was also a reminder of the reality he sought to escape. In the midst of chaos, the act of recording became a ritual, a momentary escape route that gave him a sense of direction beyond the confines of his current existence.
Life for XPURM was a balancing act between two starkly contrasting worlds. On one hand, behind closed doors and drawn curtains, he lived as his authentic self — vulnerable, creative, and free. The tapes housed his true essence, each reel a fragment of his unvarnished soul. In these private sessions, he could express the full spectrum of his emotions, from the depths of despair to fleeting moments of peace.
On the other side, a resilient mask faced the outside world. XPURM played his part in the human society with the performance of a life that bore little resemblance to the one captured on his cassettes. Here he moved through the rhythms of daily life, engaging in social rituals and upkeep of appearances demanded by the public eye.
The dual lives XPURM navigated were part survival, part self-preservation. In a world that had shown him its ability to shatter at a moment’s notice, the dichotomy of his existence allowed him to hold onto something constant — the music that echoed the honesty of his experiences and the unwavering hope of a less lonely future.