Our stars were aided by a vocal coach, the well known and widely respected Ustad Wahid Qassemi, to hone their craft. This segment opens with another group performance with our remaining 8 contestants – each doing their best to stand out from the crowd – with none other than Ustad Qassemi singing the final verse.

All of the songs from tonight were done with live instrumental accompaniment – and the positive/negative SMS voting system that is a new feature to Afghan Star.  Nazir kicked things off with a Heart favorite and pulled straight three 7s and an 8 from the judges – level with his scoring last week. Haroun Popalzai fared better, but the judges still have high expectations of him and said he’d have scored higher if he picked a more difficult song. Sohrab sang an Uzbeki classic to the delight of the judges. Hessam followed with an emotional ballad in Pashto that earned 9s. Next up, Naeb’s confidence and calm demeanor on stage brought in 10s – the highest overall score of the night. Daoud sang without his instrument tonight, but brought the crowd to their feet nonetheless.

Anahita’s last performance didn’t yield the scores she expected, but spent the last week working hard to stage a comeback – 10s (and a 9)! Rabiullah has kept up with the judges standards and it looks like he’ll continue on. Arash put on a very strong performance and received four 10’s, taking the lead for this episode. Haroun Anwari followed with an uptempo piece, but was upset with the judges scores and felt they were being untruthful. He offered to sing again, but refused the 7s he received. Will he continue? Tune in next week to find out!