For a long time, hip-hop culture, both American and French, lived in the moment, without thinking about preserving its heritage or passing on its history. This was, however, one of the great concerns of French producer DJ Mehdi, to whom Arte is dedicating a six-episode documentary series on Thursday 12 September.
After The world of tomorrow (2022), A fictional series by Katell Quillévéré and Hélier Cisterne about the beginnings of the group NTM in the 1980s, the Franco-German channel entrusted Thibaut de Longeville, a figure of French rap, with the production of DJ Mehdi. Made in Franceabout this distinguished producer of rappers Ideal J, MC Solaar, 113, Rohff, Booba and Diam’s. And also, a French electronic music DJ, a pillar of the Ed Banger label, with Pedro Winter, Justice or Cassius. Arte thus continues his work of memory on contemporary music.
Two inconsolable scenes
DJ Mehdi died at the age of 34 on September 14, 2011, after the glass floor of the mezzanine of his Parisian apartment collapsed under the weight of his guests. His death left inconsolable the two music scenes in France but also in the United States, where he had seduced with his audacity his American peers, Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Drake and the singer Katy Perry, who then took to Twitter to express their emotions about his death.
The story of this French producer begins in Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine), in the district of Luth, where both his parents grew up on the sixth and seventh floors of the same building. Both come from large families. His father, the Faveris, who have seven children, are originally from Ardèche; his mother and her ten brothers and sisters, the Essadis, are from Tunisia. Every weekend, the families meet to share their common passion for music, from funk to oriental sounds, including the Beatles.
Mehdi is the only son of this couple: “It was his father who decided to name him Mehdi because he loved the character in the TV movie. Sebastien among men [1968], says Latifa Essadi, still moved by the preview of the documentary series. The year he turned 17, Mehdi picked up his father’s record collection after he had just died in a car accident. She, his mother (who worked as an accountant), would have wanted her son, “excellent student, who skipped first grade because he already knew how to read, and read The world Every day following the advice of his French teacher in 5my »do another job. She saw him become a diplomat.
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