Record stores in Kampala

Record shops reward the patient digger. Kampala, Kampala has 2 mapped right now. That's 2 record shops mapped around Kampala. Every shop grades and prices differently, so the same record can be a bargain in one and a splurge in another — dig everywhere. Check the grading before you pay — a visual grade and a play grade are two different things.

This guide covers every record store we could verify in and around Kampala (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include De Ikon Records and Perfect Sounds 4Hire. If a record shop's missing from Kampala's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Kampala record lineup

2 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about record stores in Kampala

None of the 2 has opening hours in the map data, so treat this as a browse-and-discover trip. Record shops keep fairly standard retail hours; daytime visits are a safe bet.

The Kampala record crawl

The efficient Kampala record crawl strings these together: De Ikon Records and Perfect Sounds 4Hire — 2 stops, one logical order.

Record digging tips for Kampala

How the regulars work Kampala's bins:

• Check the vinyl, not just the sleeve at De Ikon Records. Slide it out (carefully, by the edges) and look at it in good light. Sleeves lie; vinyl doesn't.
• Bring cash for the small shops at Perfect Sounds 4Hire. Some independents prefer it, and a cash offer on a stack can occasionally move the price.
• Check the dead wax. The runout groove holds matrix numbers that identify pressings. Collectors live by these; a quick phone search settles it.
• Check for warps in the shop. Hold the record at eye level and sight along it. Warps that look minor at home look obvious in the store.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Kampala — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new record store in Kampala can take a while to appear. The 2 above are only as current as the community map. A record store that's shut, or a new one nobody's added yet, gets fixed with a single OpenStreetMap edit.

We don't list prices or stock — both change by the day. What we list is the where: real shops, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 2 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.