On December 10, 1998, Kamel Messaoudi died in a traffic accident at the age of 37, at the height of his fame. In the early 1990s, when Algiers chaâbi was struggling to renew itself and attract young people, Kamel, born on January 30, 1961 in Algiers, into a modest family, achieved great success with his first album, notably featuring Echema’a (the candle) and other tracks where he did not hesitate to shake up the old repertoire, adding his own words, closer to the reality of an Algeria then bereaved by the violence of the dark decade of the 90s, and composing melodies supported by instruments such as the acoustic guitar or the piano.