Music show: Documentary shines spotlight on life of late French producer DJ Mehdi • FRANCE 24

[Applause] [Music] hello and thanks for joining us I'm Jennifer Ben Brahim coming up on today's weekly music show on France 24 [Music] he was one of the rare musicians to unite the worlds of hip-hop and Electro French tenan producer DJ medy passed away in September 2011 after a tragic accident and he was just 34 years old now a six-part docu series weaves together archival footage firsthand accounts from loved ones and musicians to form his Rich tapestry that was his life DJ medy Maan France premiered at can Series this year which is one of the biggest television competitions in the world it won best docu series series now tell us more I'm joined in the studio by its director tibo longv tibo thank you so much for for joining us thanks for having me now you're no stranger to making documentaries you have uh over 10 documentary features under your belt if I'm correct uh including your award-winning debut which was Just for kicks documentary about sneakers hip-hop and a corporate game now this feels very different because it's deeply personal you DJ medy was in fact uh one of your closest friends my best friend actually your best friend so how did you approach making this docu series about someone who is so dear to you um it's probably the hardest project I've ever had to do um well he was obviously a very dear friend one of the things that worked in my favor um was that I shot a lot of footage with him kind of candidly really with no particular destination in mind I mean we both love music and love film and um and he's actually the person that convinced me to you know trust my ambitions and start filming you know so I'm thankful to him because I'm now a director and have my own independent production company so you know there's a lot of personal elements that come into play in this in this document which I hope Works in its favor for sure um you know I try to as much as possible distance myself and not like put myself so much in the um in the storytelling and in the picture to try to get somewhat of an objective perspective how did you two meet how did you become best friends we actually met through krie James which was um you know the leader of um his first group ID J you know big-time uh rapper and now actor producer in um in France but we were kids basically we were kids in on the hip-hop scene in Paris which was already kind of a you know super Niche environment and we were underaged um uh you know medie and K had a group as like you know kid kid rappers sort of like a crisscross and um they were professional musicians at age 15 and so I'm three years older than them they're 15 years old actually 14 years old when I met them and I'm 17 and we're both in clubs and at the hip-hop concerts where you know it's it's early 90s it's kind of rugged and we're not allowed to be there so we quickly uh connected and you know became friends ever since music documentaries what is great about them is they give a glimpse into some of our favorite artists um like we see in in DJ medy made in France but we've seen the likes of um ones about Amy win housee Tina Turner and Kanye West in your opinion what makes a good music documentary well great uh question I'm a big fan of Music documentaries obviously any genre so watch all of them for me it's actually there's something about the icon you know b Marley you name it um The Beetles there's something about like oh understanding what they're about and their life story and when it's a big superstar in the case of midi um the challenge is a bit different because the you know the the the promise is we're going to tell you a story about someone you don't know um so you know in a sense kind of like a sugarm man story where you have to go along and and and sort of learn um who the person is about and what turn that dictated was um that and for me that's really the part that I like most about music documentaries is the music making is the art of making it now DJ Medi or Medi F isad grew up in the Northwestern suburbs of Paris to a tenian mother and a French father now he started his career by working with some of the leading names in French hip hop such as MC solah and Carrie James uh so here's a quick taste of him at [Music] work fore [Music] [Music] so that was the taste of DJ medy uh made in France now tibo uh In that clip we can see medy working with a rap Collective srees on U on a few of her albums most notably uh Le or the princes of town H now that album was really quite a massive turning point for French Hip Hop for the French culture landscape as a whole and you really get that in the documentary we see his change uh the shift uh in France and it actually won two Awards out of musique which is kind of equivalent to the Grammy a French equivalent um what made DJ medy so attractive to these hip-hop artists to artists in general what was his kind of Magic Touch that he brought to the studio um I think the Quest for originality is something that always went through his process very very early on um in Hip Hop in general and in hip-hop out of the United States there's always the reference of American hip hop so you know DJ Premiere Dr Dre Kanye West these massive you know farell super producers that people whoever create you know or try to create new sounds they have that reference and some people specifically in French hip hop a lot of them uh in terms of music making patterned themselves after certain producers specifically in the early days so if you look at like '90s hip-hop anywhere in Europe but specifically in France that's been you know a um really notorious creator of hip-hop um the beats the music pretty much sounds very similar Med's overall style and his point of view and all that was try to be original and try to bring something to the table rather than you know take all the inspiration and be like yo I could do music like farel or you know DJ Premiere and so that's really what took by storm um French hip hop French music and really started to put um the you know was the starting point of him becoming an international artist now another defining moment of uh DJ Med's career was joining Ed Banger records yes uh and that was electro label founded by Pedro winter uh and it became really synonymous with the French touch movement um and you know included likes of justice and D punk as well as DJ medy um why did Ed Banger become such a cultural phenomenon and what was Med's role in it well you know the the label was really the bearer of the torch that you know was initiated by the first wave of the the French touch movement um you know which really brought a lot of artists from France who really you know blew up on the international stage so that staff Punk and cashes and um Ed Bango was the and Pedro winter the founder of the label was the manager actually of the majority of these acts and Ed Banger was really the second chapter that bought what we now call the French touch 2.0 which was not only Electronica or EDM and sort of that sound but was more mixed and super free and you know sort of blew up at the time of what we call blog house so it's something that came up as well as like at the same time as Myspace and and the entire digital space um and you know certainly defining a very new sound which kind of is embodied by Justice uh with this sort of mix of like hard French Electronica with this rock and roll attitude and medy was not just an artist on the label his his first album is the first album that that came out on yeah I actually want to show our listeners a bit of one of his songs because it was really became kind of synonymous with uh DJ Medi so let's listen to the song signatune [Music] so uh DJ Medi uh TBO really built a bridge between hip-hop and Electro music at a one point documentary you see Santa gold even uh describing his sound as a black tronic but uh not everyone was super happy with this uh you know blending of genres and we see that in the documentary some of his previous uh collaborators not really understanding how he could have a foot in each World why do you think that was the case um well there's a um a social component that's very important in this is that overall the hip-hop genre and that's around the world is mostly a black and brown musical genre and you know and you know since then it's been proven that everyone could create original hip hop but at its early stages it's something that initiated in Bronx and wherever you are in the world it's mostly you know initiated by the lower class sort of poor people um whereas the French Electronica is mostly from an upper class sort and mostly like white kids who produce this music in in you know the notorious ones like mostly sort of call a white music movement uh whereas you know oddly enough the roots of the electronic musical movement and of hip-hop sort of lie in the same um family tree so that's Funk so disco um and sort of these roots begat both hip hop and let's say in New York city in the US and then Chicago house music and Detroit techno music and they're all linked by number one you know the usage of like Samplers and and drum machines but they as they grew they sort of became a part specifically on the world stage whereas you know in the US hip-hop and house music would kind of be mixed and you know everyone would understand these are both you know they're all three hip hop housing techno music ghetto music um I'm afraid we come to the end of the show U it's gone very quickly and I want to thank you for coming uh DJ Med main France and also um that's the documentary is coming out on on the 12th of September and on its YouTube channel and as we were talking a bit previously there's going to be an um uh kind of event around the release of a documentary at paris's leg L there'll be a series of talks and concerts on the 14th of September so please go and check it out and before we go just enough time to tell you about my album of a week from um an electronic artist continuing DJ Med's Legacy I'm sure you'll agree with me uh of blending dance music and Hip-Hop uh this is British producer and DJ Fred again and he's back with uh a new album called 10 days with collaborations including sest Skrillex and Anderson pack and we can hear this on the next song places to be now for More arts and culture you can follow us on social media there's more news coming up on France 24 just after this hello I got places to be pretty pretty brown BR have me weak in the knees slow up you hold me down and readjusted my speed I've been gone too long y don't need okay a MH put up on the again running up in the Su was nasty sh in my AES if you believe they put a man on the D what I got to do I got to that ass