This paper explores the ambivalence of belonging and national identity among urban middle-class youths in post-revolution Egypt. Independent music producers’ represent the new generation of urban middle-class Egyptian youths who aspire for alternative lives and cultures independent from the state-controlled mainstream media, and whose lives have been shaped by the hopes of the 2011 Arab Spring and the frustrations of its aftermath. By examining music producers’ artwork, artistic labor, and relation to the audience, I focus on a common lyrical theme in independent music producers’ songs: their ambivalence towards the nation. The paper traces the music producers’ simultaneous attachment to and estrangement from the nation. On the one hand, independent music producers describe a sense of estrangement from “the nation” and “the people” in the aftermath of the counterrevolution and the resurgence of populist authoritarianism. On the other hand, independent music producers also express their affective attachments to the nation by describing the ways their career aspirations are embedded in local social networks and the ways their artistic expressions are rooted in the Egyptian cultural milieu. I propose that the coexistence of hope and despair has shaped a widespread ambivalence towards the nation among middle-class youths after the 2011 revolution. In the case of independent music producers, this ambivalence reflects the relative independence media producers have garnered in the digital age, and the ways in which this independence is smothered by populist aesthetics suffused by the state-controlled media industry. I argue that independent music producers register the ways youths in Egypt are refusing the official national identities imposed by the state and established media industry. Instead, these producers address their audience not as members of the nation, but rather as listeners who share the same ambivalence towards the nation. In so doing, the affective affinities coalesced by independent music production and its expression of national ambivalence lay down the groundwork for alternative forms of belonging. In the face of the homogenizing populist aesthetics of the authoritarian regime in Egypt, independent music production is expressive of counter-aesthetics for those who yearn to belong and yet fail but to share their collective ambivalence.