On today's arts24 music show, Jennifer Ben Brahim chats with Thibaut de Longeville, director of the award-winning documentary series "DJ Mehdi: Made in France". The French-Tunisian producer was one of the rare musicians to unite the worlds of hip-hop and electro as well as being synonymous with the Ed Banger label – the pioneers of the "French Touch" movement. DJ Mehdi passed away in September 2011 after a tragic accident; he was only 34 years old. The six-part documentary series weaves together archival footage, first-hand accounts from loved ones and musicians to form a rich tapestry that was the life of DJ Mehdi.
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00:00Hello and thanks for joining us, I'm Jennifer Benbrahim, coming up on today's weekly music
00:15show on France 24.
00:17You had to play the beat all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time.
00:20That's how I learned, that's how I perfected myself.
00:28Then you play the beat and you record the sample in pass-pass at the same time.
00:46Thank you so much for joining us.
01:06Thanks for having me.
01:07Now, you're no stranger to making documentaries.
01:09You have over 10 documentary features under your belt, if I'm correct, including your
01:15award-winning debut, which was Just For Kicks, a documentary about sneakers, hip-hop and
01:19a corporate game.
01:20Now, this feels very different because it's deeply personal.
01:23DJ Mehdi was in fact one of your closest friends.
01:26My best friend, actually.
01:27Your best friend.
01:28So how did you approach making this docuseries about someone who is so dear to you?
01:33It's probably the hardest project I've ever had to do.
01:38Well, he was obviously a very dear friend.
01:41One of the things that worked in my favor was that I shot a lot of footage with him,
01:48kind of candidly, really, with no particular destination in mind.
01:51I mean, we both love music and love film and he's actually the person that convinced me
01:58to trust my ambitions and start filming.
02:03So I'm thankful to him because I'm now a director and have my own independent production company.
02:09So, you know, there's a lot of personal elements that come into play in this document, which
02:15I hope works in its favor.
02:19I try to, as much as possible, distance myself and not put myself so much in the storytelling
02:26and in the picture to try to get somewhat of an objective perspective.
02:30How did you two meet?
02:31How did you become best friends?
02:33We actually met through Kerry James, which was, you know, the leader of his first group,
02:39Ideal J, you know, big time rapper and now actor, producer in France.
02:47But we were kids, basically.
02:49We were kids on the hip hop scene in Paris, which was already kind of a, you know, super
02:56niche environment.
02:57And we were underaged.
03:00You know, Mehdi and Kerry had a group as like, you know, kid rappers, sort of like a crisscross.
03:07And they were professional musicians at age 15.
03:11And so I'm three years older than them.
03:13They're 15 years old, actually 14 years old when I met them.
03:16And I'm 17.
03:17And we're both in clubs and at the hip hop concerts where, you know, it's early 90s,
03:23it's kind of rugged.
03:25And we're not allowed to be there.
03:27So we quickly connected and, you know, became friends ever since.
03:31Music documentaries, what is great about them is that they give a glimpse into some of our
03:34favorite artists, like we see in DJ Mehdi, Made in France.
03:39But we've seen the likes of ones about Amy Winehouse, Tina Turner and Kanye West.
03:44In your opinion, what makes a good music documentary?
03:47Well, great question.
03:49I'm a big fan of music documentaries, obviously, any genre.
03:52So watch all of them.
03:54For me, it's actually, there's something about the icon, you know, Bob Marley, you name it,
04:01the Beatles.
04:02There's something about like, oh, understanding what they're about and their life story and
04:07when it's a big superstar.
04:09In the case of Mehdi, the challenge is a bit different because the, you know, the promise
04:15is we're going to tell you a story about someone you don't know.
04:19Um, so, you know, in a sense, it's kind of like a sugar man story where you have to go
04:24along and sort of learn who the person is about and what in turn that dictated was that.
04:33And for me, that's really the part that I like most about music documentaries is the
04:37music making, is the art of making it.
04:39Now, DJ Mehdi or Mehdi Favelis Essadi grew up in the northwestern suburbs of Paris to
04:44an initiate mother and a French father.
04:46Now, he started his career by working with some of the leading names in French hip hop,
04:50such as MC Soulard and Kerry James.
04:53So here's a quick taste of him at work.
05:16So that was a taste of DJ Mehdi made in France.
05:45Now, Thibaut, in that clip, we can see Mehdi working with a rap collective, 113, on a few
05:51of their albums, most notably Les Princes de la Ville or The Princes of the Town.
05:56Now, that album was really quite a massive turning point for French hip hop.
06:00Yes, for the French culture, landscape as a whole.
06:04And you really get that in the documentary.
06:06You see this change, the shift in France.
06:10And it actually won two awards at the Victoire de la Musique, which is kind of the equivalent
06:13to the Grammy, the French equivalent.
06:15What made DJ Mehdi so attractive to these hip hop artists, to artists in general?
06:20What was his kind of magic touch that he brought to the studio?
06:24I think the quest for originality is something that always went through his process very,
06:29very early on in hip hop in general.
06:34In hip hop out of the United States, there's always the reference of American hip hop.
06:39You know, DJ Premier, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, these massive Pharrell super producers that
06:46people, whoever create or try to create new sounds, they have that reference.
06:52And some people, specifically in French hip hop, a lot of them, in terms of music making,
06:57patterned themselves after certain producers, specifically in the early days.
07:02So if you look at 90s hip hop anywhere in Europe, but specifically in France, that's
07:07been, you know, a really notorious creator of hip hop.
07:13The beats, the music pretty much sounds very similar.
07:18Mehdi's overall style and his point of view on that was try to be original and try to
07:23bring something to the table rather than, you know, take all the inspiration and be
07:28like, yo, I could do music like Pharrell or, you know, DJ Premier.
07:32And so that's really what took by storm French hip hop, French music, and really started
07:38to put the, you know, was the starting point of him becoming an international artist.
07:46Now, another defining moment of DJ Mehdi's career was joining Ed Banger Records.
07:51Yes.
07:52And that was the electro label founded by Pedro Winter, and it became really synonymous
07:56with the French touch movement.
07:57Yep.
07:58And, you know, that included the likes of Justice and Daft Punk as well as DJ Mehdi.
08:03Why did Ed Banger become such a cultural phenomenon and what was Mehdi's role in it?
08:07Well, you know, the label was really the bearer of the torch that, you know, was initiated
08:13by the first wave of the French touch movement, you know, which really brought a lot of artists
08:21from France who really, you know, blew up on the international stage.
08:25So that's Daft Punk and Cassius and Ed Banger was, and Pedro Winter, the founder of the
08:31label was the manager actually of the majority of these acts.
08:34And Ed Banger was really the second chapter that bought what we now call the French touch
08:392.0, which was not only electronica or EDM and sort of that sound, but was more mixed
08:47and super free and, you know, sort of blew up at the time of what we call blog house.
08:53So it's something that came up as well as like, at the same time as MySpace and the
08:58entire digital space.
09:01And, you know, certainly defining a very new sound, which kind of is embodied by Justice
09:07with this sort of mix of like hard French electronica with this rock and roll attitude.
09:14And Mehdi was not just an artist on the label.
09:17His first album was the first album that came out on Ed Banger.
09:22Yeah, I actually want to show our listeners a bit of one of his songs because it was,
09:25really became kind of synonymous with DJ Mehdi.
09:28So let's take a listen to the song, Signature.
09:31So DJ Mehdi Thibault really built a bridge between hip hop and electro music.
09:55And at one point in the documentary, you see Santigold even describing his sound as
09:59a blacktronic.
10:01But not everyone was super happy with this, you know, blending of genres.
10:05And we see that in the documentary, some of his previous collaborators not really understanding
10:10how he could have a foot in each world.
10:11Why do you think that was the case?
10:14Well, there is a social component that's very important in this, is that overall the hip
10:22hop genre, and that's around the world, is mostly a black and brown musical genre.
10:28And, you know, since then it's been proven that everyone could create original hip hop,
10:34but it's early stages.
10:36It's something that initiated in Bronx and wherever you are in the world, it's mostly,
10:40you know, initiated by the lower class sort of poor people.
10:44Whereas the French electronica is mostly from an upper class and mostly like white kids
10:53who produce this music.
10:57The notorious ones are like mostly sort of quote unquote a white music movement.
11:04Whereas, you know, oddly enough, the roots of the electronic musical movement and of
11:09hip hop sort of lie in the same family tree.
11:14That's funk, soul, disco, and sort of these roots begat both hip hop in, let's say, in
11:22New York City in the US and then Chicago house music and Detroit techno music.
11:27And they're all linked by, number one, you know, the usage of samplers and drum machines.
11:32But as they grew, they sort of became a part specifically on the world stage.
11:37Whereas, you know, in the US, hip hop and house music would kind of be mixed and, you
11:42know, everyone would understand these are like, you know, they're all three, hip hop,
11:46house and techno music, ghetto music.
11:49I'm afraid we've come to the end of the show.
11:50It's gone very quickly.
11:52And I want to thank you for coming and talking about DJ Mehdi made in France.
11:56And also, the documentary is coming out on Arte on the 12th of September and on its YouTube
12:02channel.
12:03And as we were talking a bit previously, there's going to be an event around the release of
12:08a documentary at Paris' La Gaieté Lyrique.
12:11There'll be a series of talks and concerts on the 14th of September.
12:14So please go and check it out.
12:16And before we go, just enough time to tell you about my album of the week from an electronic
12:20artist continuing DJ Mehdi's legacy.
12:23I'm sure you'll agree with me on blending dance music and hip hop.
12:26This is British producer and DJ Fred again.
12:29And he's back with a new album called 10 Days with collaborations, including Sampha, Skrillex
12:34and Anderson .Paak.
12:35And we can hear this on the next song, Places to Be.
12:38Now, for more arts and culture, you can follow us on social media.
12:41There's more news coming up on France 24 just after this.
13:08Transcribed by https://otter.ai