Y2K Visuals are Making a Huge Comeback in North African Music

A VHS-style shot of a retro Moroccan living room with brown furniture and intricate wallpaper. In the corner, a tube TV is playing the iconic music video of “Youm Wara Youm” – or is it? At a closer look, it’s not Cheb Mami and Samira Said, but Tawsen. He’s wearing a dark suit and smiling into the camera, his voice distorted in a Raï-inspired arrangement as he thanks the audience and tells them “Zid Sawt” (turn up the volume). 

“Zid Sawt” is the focus track on Tawsen’s recently released debut album Chokran (Thank you). Like his previous music videos, its bold colors and surrealist visuals made a splash upon its release. It also taps into a current trend across North African visuals: the return of early-2000s visuals born of nostalgia and the reimagining of the cultural icons that contemporary artists grew up listening to. 

“The visual concept of ‘Zid Sawt’ started with a memory. I wanted the opening of the video to feel like you're stepping into a different era, almost like watching an old VHS tape or an early 2000s music video,” Tawsen tells OkayAfrica. “That nostalgic framing wasn't just an aesthetic choice; it was a tribute.”

Tawsen worked with Paris-based Moroccan director Farid Malki, who added his own childhood memories to Tawsen’s. “The old television that instantly reminds you of coming home after school to watch 2M, the colorful candies on the table that every Moroccan kid remembers, the old school notebooks, the deck of cards... All those little details create another layer of nostalgia,” says Tawsen. “It became his madeleine de Proust inside my madeleine de Proust, and I love that.”

The late 1990s and early 2000s are also making a comeback in Egypt, with artists and directors heavily leaning into low-fi digital camcorder textures, fisheye lenses, exaggerated color grading, analog TV artifacts, and early internet/MTV-era styling.

Co-directed by Lewis Atallah and Mattias Russo-Larsson, the music video for “Hayati” by Egyptian rapper and songstress Felukah and Palestinian DJ Habibeats invokes early 2000s house parties and MTV-era R&B music videos, pairing bouncy, early-2000s style trap and garage percussion with saturated, handheld house-party footage, Y2K fashion, and a casual, intimate late-night aesthetic. 

“We were inspired by Pink Pantheress and really wanted to create that Y2K sound in Arabic because not a lot of artists are doing that,” Felukah tells OkayAfrica. “We both love 2000s music and were alchemizing and thinking of that era. It was [Attalah’s] idea to shoot on film and showcase an unconventional party scene filled with paradoxical moments.” 

On “matrosh,” Marwan Moussa pays homage to popular Egyptian cinema and pop culture at the turn of the millennium, leaning into late-90s fashion with leather jackets and over-the-top tailored suits. Co-directed by El Antably and Mohamed Aboelella, the music video makes use of early digital TV framing, CRT monitor textures, and exaggerated action-comedy character tropes while his lyrics reference the era of burned CD-ROMs and bootleg media, flexing "السيديهات عندي 100,000 واسكت" ("I have 100,000 CDs, shut up").

Similarly, Moroccan rapper Dizzy DROS’s visual rollouts for his recently released album AFLAM (films) pay direct homage to 2000s media. Structured like a cinematic album, every song represents a movie scene. The promo materials, official announcement, and first music video span classic blockbusters, early DVD menus, and nostalgic Arab satellite TV channel aesthetics like Melody Hits or Mazzika (which Tawsen also references in ‘Zid Sawt’). 

Khaled Mokthar’s video for Egyptian superstar Wegz’ collaboration with Disco Misr, “Keify Keda,” brilliantly draws from kitschy Y2K commercials. Disco Misr are famous for flipping late-90s and 2000s Arab pop samples, and Wegz’ rap and acting performance perfectly captures the campy vibe of daytime pop shows back in the day. His boldly colorful outfit references the legendary Egyptian monologue artist, actor, and puppeteer Mahmoud Shokoko (1912–1985), leaning into a theatrical, street-smart vintage style rooted in classic Egyptian mid-century pop and sha’abi culture.

While the music videos for “Keify Keda” and “Zid Sawt” highlight the aesthetic differences between Moroccan and Egyptian culture in the 2000s, both artists clearly have fun with the storytelling in similar ways. 

“I'm naturally a bit goofy; I like making people laugh, playing characters and not taking myself too seriously. If that means doing my best Cheb Mami impression, or redesigning the legendary Mazzika logo into the logo of SAWT, my own label, then why not?” says Tawsen. 

Despite the increase of nostalgic sounds and visuals in contemporary North African music, Tawsen does not see this trend as merely looking backward.  “For me, it's another way of moving forward with confidence without forgetting where I come from,” he asserts. “Whether [people] recognize [the references] or not, if it reminds them of their own childhood, their family, or a moment that meant something to them, then we've created something bigger than just a music video.”