Past projects
The Hidden Years Music Archive was founded by David Marks in 1990 to safeguard and make available his extensive collection of alternative popular music. This collection documents music and musicians from 1960 to the early 2000s.
This archive was donated to Stellenbosch University in 2013, and under the leadership of Lizabé Lambrechts, grew to include an interdisciplinary research project dedicated to the preservation and study of alternative popular South African music. This project was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2015 to 2021 and hosted at the Africa Open Institute.
The archive holds a unique collection of material including sound recordings, photographs, posters, programs, documents, press cuttings, notebooks and diaries.