The Carthage Music Days have reclaimed their place on the Tunisian capital’s cultural calendar. This 11th edition, held from October 3 to 10, 2026, also marked the festival’s return to its traditional autumn slot, after the previous session was exceptionally staged in January. Under artistic director Mondher Fellah, organizers were highly selective: out of 378 applications, only 26 projects made the cut.
The audience, largely young, showed up in numbers. At the Opera Theatre of the City of Culture, rapper VIPA performed his latest album “OBOS” live with twenty musicians in front of a sold-out 1,800-seat hall. For the artist, whose real name is Kaïs Kekli, the record was conceived as a collective work that lacked just one final member to be complete: the audience itself.
The mood shifted on the metal stage, a genre with a strong following among Tunisian youth. The band Saharage presented “Apex Africa,” a project blending distorted guitars with African sounds. Bassist and singer Zaher Ben Abdallah describes a speculative tale in which a tribe resists invaders in a world that has both regressed and advanced technologically, drawing on voodoo rituals and ancestral traditions.
Molka Aouij delivered another highlight with “Back To My Roots.” Familiar to TV audiences from her roles in drama series, the singer, dancer and actress is also the daughter of Tunisian diva Amina Fakhet. Her show weaves together Arabic music, electro, pop, dance and visual storytelling, with the stated goal of showcasing the country’s talent.
The lineup was not exclusively Tunisian. Performers came from Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Senegal and Chad, among others, spread across eight venues including Habib Bourguiba Avenue. The festival also broke new ground with a first ever section held in prisons, under the slogan “The same rhythm of freedom,” as well as an edition taken to the regions. A jazz workshop, organized with Marseille Jazz des Cinq Continents, mentored some thirty professional musicians.
With Tunisian artists making up at least 60% of the program, the JMC clearly bet on the local scene, and the gamble appears to have paid off. Tunisia’s cultural season now continues with the Carthage Theatre Days from November 21 to 28, followed by the Carthage Film Festival from December 12 to 19.