The 10th National Chaabi Music festival, in which will compete twenty four performers from different regions of the country opened, Thursday evening in Algiers with the performances of the first candidates to four awards of the event.

Organized until June 30th at the Agora area, at Riadh El Feth Office, the festival was inaugurated by the minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi, who honoured the families of Kamal Messaoudi (1961-1998) and Rachid Nouni (1943-1999), two icons of the Algiers popular music, to whom the organizers have chosen to pay tribute.

Two video montages evoking the career and the personality of the two late singers were screened on this occasion in front of a large audience.

The four first candidates then performed on stage standards of melhoum (Maghreb popular poetry) in front of a jury chaired by Lounes Aissaoui and made up of musicologists, lyric writers and other specialists of the Chaabi music.

The national Chaabi Music Festival, established in 2006, aims at preserving the heritage of this kind of popular music and ensure artistic activities during the month of Ramadan.