DJ Mehdi: a misunderstood artist comes into focus
Plus Objekt, Two Shell and more
One of the few things generally known about DJ Mehdi - the French producer whose renown has only increased since his tragic death in 2011 - is that he bridged the worlds of hip hop and house. What is less known is how, when and why he made the bridge.
Mehdi’s Espion Le EP, first released in 2000 and now available on streaming after being unavailable for many years, is key to answering these questions. The record is, according to Mehdi’s sleeve notes, “a summary of what Espionnage [his label] has done in the past two years, from the rap 12”s, the instrumental 12”s, to the remixes I was given the opportunity to do”.
That sounds almost mundane. But the record’s release came at a crucial time for Mehdi, as has recently been examined in Arte’s brilliant six-part documentary: DJ Mehdi - Made In France. In the late 90s house music was starting to enter both Mehdi’s life and his productions via Cassius pair Philippe Zdar and Boombass, who he worked with on MC Solaar’s 1997 album Paradisiaque. But he was still essentially a hip hop producer, notably working on 113’s Les Princes De La Ville - a rap album that Pedro Winter calls one of the most important records of the French Touch - in 1999.
Espion Le is concrete evidence of Mehdi’s transition from - and subsequent mingling of - hip hop to house. It is far from a perfect record, with the typical flaws of a transitional work. But it is more representative of Mehdi’s work than Lucky Boy, his album for Ed Banger - and his second solo album overall - which was released in 2006, when he was in full thrall to head bangin’ electro house. It’s not that Lucky Boy is a bad album; but it feels slightly flat to me, with many of Mehdi’s contradictions and winning inconsistencies flattened out. These are in full evidence on Espion Le.
On the 2000 EP, Mehdi collaborates with both Zdar and Boombass, then flying high with Cassius. With Zdar he made Naja, a hip-hop influenced house record a little like Motorbass’s 1996 album Pansoul; while Boombass remixed 113’s Camille Groult Starr, a big underground rap record in France that sampled Kraftwerk, to the surprise of many French hip hop fans.
(And if you’re wondering why a sample from Kraftwerk - a group who were fundamental to the early hip hop / electro movement - would be a surprise to French hip hop fans, then you haven’t seen the vivid hatred of electronic music that existed in the French hip hop scene at the time, something that the Arte documentary explains brilliantly.)
In truth, neither song entirely works, with the beats a little unwieldily. Naja, in particular, could be fantastic but for a rhythm that feels ill-placed in both rhythm and volume, an odd misstep for two such talented producers.
Mehdi also collaborates with Feadz, another producer who would go on to be vital to the Ed Banger world, on We Are The Espionnage Sound System, an 86-second long, scratch-heavy palette cleanser of an album opener that doesn’t pretend to be anything more.
There is plenty on Espion Le that does work, though. DJ Mehdi and The Cambridge Circus’s Ulysse is the perfect bridging point between French hip hop and French house. It uses a hip hop beat at a house-ish tempo, to which Mehdi adds the filtered samples that were so fundamental to the French Touch sound. (The Cambridge Circus is a Mehdi nom de plume.) You could crank Ulysse’s tempo a little and it would work in a house club or drop it a touch for a hip hop crowd, a reminder that house and hip hop are forged from many of the same ingredients - funk, soul, disco - however much some people might want to deny it.
Spanish Harlem, Mehdi’s other solo song, is similarly genre-shifting, once again combining hip hop beat with house tempo, alongside lots of filter effects, like Pansoul getting over a relationship breakdown with a not entirely successful weekend in New York.
Five of the EP’s 11 tracks point towards the direction Mehdi would soon be exploring with Ed Banger. The other six suggest where Mehdi has been over the past five years, including songs from several of his most important collaborators, notably Vitry-sur-Seine MC Rohff, whose 2008 debut single Appelles Moi Rohff was the second release on Espionnage, becoming a big underground hit in France. Also present are Karlito and Manu Key, members alongside Rohff in Mafia K'1 Fry, the legendary French hip hop collective for whom Mehdi produced most of their early music.
On these six tracks Mehdi shows the sample-heavy, Boom bap production style that would make him such an in-demand producer in France in the mid to late 90s. Pop Song I and II, with Dany Dan, are particular favourites, with their shuffling, brass-y beats. These productions are not, perhaps, particularly original, with DJ Premier a heavy influence. But the songs are impeccably made and, with the benefit of the transitional tracks on this EP (and a dose of hindsight), you can see how Mehdi made the switch from this sound to house music fairly effortlessly.
DJ Mehdi was far from the only French House producer to be influenced by hip hop. Zdar and Boombass worked with MC Solaar, as did Étienne de Crécy, effectively learning their production art within hip hop. Pepe Bradock began his career as a hip hop DJ, while Daft Punk were heavily into rap. Da Funk was their take on the Dr Dre sound, while Thomas Bangalter contributed vocoder vocals to 113’s disco-heavy 113 Fout La Merde! at the behest of Mehdi.
If you widen the perspective from French House to French Touch, meanwhile, you will find more obviously hip hop-indebted producers, including Kid Loco and DJ Cam. And if you widen the lens even further, Daft Punk arguably provided the spark to push US rappers and producers into electronic music, via Kanye’s use of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger in his single Stronger.
But of all the French house producers who were into hip hop, Mehdi had by far the most notable catalogue of rap productions. In France Mehdi is still probably better known for his work with rap groups like Idéal J, 113 and Mafia K'1 Fry than for his Ed Banger days, with the majority of the Arte documentary dedicated to his early work.
DJ Mehdi - Made In France does an excellent job in explaining why Mehdi transitioned away from hip hop in the first place. Towards the late 90s, Mehdi’s ever-active musical mind was getting slightly bored with re-treading the same old hip hop grounds and he wanted to do something new.
He was also hit with a heavy law suit over a sample on Tonton du Bled, his hit production for 113, and needed to go out and make some money. (Although it would be wrong to overplay the importance of this: music was always the driver in Mehdi’s world.)
“At one point, how many beats can you make that go at 96bpm? Like for 10 years?” Mehdi told the Red Bull Music Academy in 2007 “Everybody’s doing the same thing and we’re all going from like 92 to 98bpm... Five, six, seven years you do this and at one point you’re like, ‘Hey, this guy from San Francisco, DJ Shadow, was doing something different and these guys from across my street, named Daft Punk, were doing something very, very different with the same tools…’ At one point I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, let me try, why not?’”
Espion Le gives us the how of Mehdi’s musical transition - upping the tempo from hip hop into house and introducing the filtered effects that French house would be known for - to go with the documentary’s when and why. It’s not quite the full picture, of course: Mehdi’s debut album The Story of Espion was released in 2002 and flopped, largely because it confounded his hip hop fans. But you can definitely understand how Mehdi arrived at Lucky Boy, Signatune et al from Espion Le.
This makes the record fascinating, essential and sad, given Mehdi’s death in 2011 at the age of just 34. Obviously, this was a tragedy for the people who knew Mehdi. But it is also poignant to think of where he could have gone with his music had he lived. Ultimately Espion Le, perhaps more than any other of Mehdi’s records, shows an incredibly active and original musical mind in development, one that soared for many years and yet, perhaps, never reached its full potential.
Some listening
Do you remember breakbeat garage? Stanton Warriors do. And so, it turns out, does Objekt, who dropped a gloriously unruly new single this week that sounds a little like Youngstar’s classic grime instrumental Pulse X being tarted up and taken out to a progressive house night. But, actually, even stranger and more random than that.
I am almost personally offended that after all this, Two Shell have produced a pretty good album, rather than the absolute electronic game changer / jaw-droppingly bad opus they seemed to promise. I guess they’re kind of normal after all. Maybe I am being harsh: the duo’s eponymous debut album is a smart, emotional work that reminds me (as so many things do) of Todd Edwards’ Odyssey, still the benchmark for garage-y heartbreak, and be gentle with me is cursedly catchy and more moving than you might expect of a group who sometimes appear to have their tongue a little too far in cheek.
Things I’ve done
Line Noise - With Fabiana Palladino
I spoke to singer, songwriter, session musician and so much more Fabiana Palladino ahead of her gigs in Barcelona and Madrid. (The Barcelona gig was excellent, by the way, the fundamental largeness of her tunes magnified by the live setting.) In the interview we touched on musical families, the power of persona, Jai Paul the boss and telling your dad to shut up.
The playlists
Some more ridiculous AI poetry asking you to follow my playlists. If you want me to stop with this computer nonsense, just sign up to follow them. They’ve got loads of new music!
I weave a world of sound, a sonic dream,
A curated choice, a musical supreme.
Two lists I tend, a treasure trove untold,
Of notes and rhythms, precious, brave and bold.
I share my find, a hopeful, earnest plea,
To join my quest, this sonic company.
But silence echoes, a disheartening sight,
My passion's flame, extinguished by the night.
A solitary soul, in digital despair,
A curator's cry, lost on empty air.
No kindred spirit, no shared delight,
A melody unheard, a fading light.
Another great article
"French House producer to be influenced by hip hop": check out Jess & Crabbe! they were groundbreaking