From hardcore rap to French Touch, a series broadcast Thursday on arte.tv and YouTube traces the lightning trajectory of DJ Mehdi, a character unknown to the general public but a key figure in an emerging French scene.
Through six episodes, “DJ Mehdi: Made in France”, winner of the best documentary series award at Canneseries 2024, paints the portrait of Mehdi Faveris-Essadi, stage name DJ Mehdi, a visionary composer and turntable prodigy.
His accidental death at the age of 34, on September 14, 2011, after the collapse of a roof window, was a shock to two worlds at opposite ends of the spectrum, rap and electro, which he nevertheless managed to bring together.
“He is an artist with a unique trajectory and, through him, there was an excuse to tell the story of these two movements,” Thibaut de Longeville, a director and close friend of this precocious autodidact, explained to AFP.
At a time when young people are discovering college at the same time as adolescent excitement, Mehdi rummages through his vinyl collection, nourished by the music that is omnipresent in his family, part Tunisian who immigrated to France.
No instrument to produce sounds? He picks them from records to reinvent his own mixes. No money to buy a sampler (an instrument for recording sounds, then reproducing or modifying them)? He tinkers with one with spare parts.
“I was very young, the day it worked, I did more than that,” the music lover tells the camera, in one of the many archives of this documentary, many of which have never been seen before.
With Mehdi, “everything is intense, everything is generous,” underlines Thibaut de Longeville, assuring that he did not want to create a “hagiography” of a “character” to whom he swears he has not found any detractors.
This historical dive is based on the testimonies of his close friends, including big names. On the rap side, his childhood friend Kery James, MC Solaar, the Mafia K’1 Fry collective and 113, whose success is largely due to his original productions.
On the electro side, Hubert Blanc-Francard (Boombass, from the duo Cassius) explains his influence, as do Justice and Pedro Winter, with whom he created Ed Banger, the French Touch label, in the early 2000s.
Suburbanites vs. bourgeois, street vs. club: DJ Mehdi didn’t choose, preferring to build “bridges” between two currents that were going to conquer the musical landscape. One is a champion of streaming platforms, the other was dedicated to the closing ceremony of the Paris Paralympic Games on Sunday.
On Saturday, a day and an evening will be dedicated to the artist at the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris.
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