5. ETIENNE DE CRECY ‘Out of my hands’ (2002)

Another bridge between Hip-hop and House, Etienne de Crécy (along with Zdar) used to be the most in-demand sound engineer of the french 90’s rap scene. I remember the first time we worked together in 1994; he asked for a Technics SL 1200 turntable as payment for the session. I was working on this movie soundtrack and was fighting a lot with the producers, old-school-industry-freaking-rules style. I was only 17 and Etienne was the only grown-up actually paying attention to how I wanted the music to sound. We became good friends and I went on to work with him on both his Tempovision and Superdiscount projects. He’s also a superb reggae dancer.

4. DJ MEHDI and FAFI ‘Lucky Girl’ (2007)

Of course, the artist I remixed the most is myself. Matter fact, a lot of my tracks are actually distant remixes of older songs of mine and I always recycle beats and sounds. Everyday I wake up, turn the MPC on, and make a beat. If the beat holds it up to a lunch pause and supports a second listen, then it becomes a Logic session on my computer. From there to turn into an actual song can take one or two months, sometimes more. Often, my wife Fafi would hum along some melodies and I end up stealing parts of it without telling nor paying her. When it’s so obvious than I can’t deny it anymore, I let her sing it herself, but I always pretend that it’s an engineering nightmare to plug a microphone in, or impossible to find the power cable to that keyboard sitting on the desk in front of me.

3. JOAKIM ‘Oleg Dans Les Bois’  (1999)

Bending my Hip-hop style and rap beat-making techniques to dance music has always been a head-wrecker to me. Making the transition from producing french ghetto MC’s to rock it in Ibiza and Miami with Busy P sure was a career challenge. But nothing obsessed my mind more than finding new ways of forcing Ultramagnetic MC’s aesthetics into a (Boysnoize) DJ set. Let alone make a whole album out of it. Many of my DJ friends were telling me “Keep on doing what you do best!”, but of course they would’ve never played a 96 BPM french-speaking rap track at The End in London, which is where I wanted to hear it.

Things started to change when Timbaland, Rockwilder and Swizz Beats appeared on the scene and started to alter misconceptions people on both sides had about the other. When The Neptunes set the whole thing on fire, everybody was obliged to understand the truth: it’s always been the same music, produced by the same people, using the same tools and instruments. After 20 years, Afrika Bambaata was finally right.

At the time Gilb’r asked me to remix this ‘Oleg’ track of Joakim, I was still clueless. He played me this DJ Spinna instrumental that he really liked and noted how much he thought I could be going in the same direction. Retrospectively, a) you can definitely hear the heavy Spinna influence on this track, and b) he was, once again, so right.

2. BUSY P ‘To Protect and Entertain’ (2008)

Meeting Busy P is the second most important thing happening to my DJ and beat-maker life.

DJ Gilb’r had been playing and explaining techno and house-music to me since 1994. The Cassius boys gave me their La Funk Mob and Motorbass records while we were producing MC Solaar’s third album in 96. I met the whole Daft Crew in NYC in 97: Pedro made me a mix-tape of Kenny Dope beats and forced me into buying ‘Jam The Mace’ and a couple of Underground Resistance EP’s. But he was also a lot into Jay-Dee and The Alchemist. He became my manager in 2000 and founded Headbangers Entertainment in 2001. When he had the idea of starting a vynil label, I suggested him to tell people to “Call Ed Banger for feedbacks” and write his telephone number on the back covers. Then So-Me came into Pedro’s office – and never left. They started Ed Banger Records in 2003. Although I was always part of the family, I only officially jumped-in in 2005.

1. ‘Red Black And Blue’ Intro (2009)

Peeps,

My name is Mehdi Faveris Essadi. I’m a DJ. I’m into beat-making and having fun.

In 1988 I bought my first album, it was a cassette tape of Public Enemy’s second record.

In 1990, my father, my uncles Kamel and Choukri, and my cousin Samad showed me the basic ropes of deejaying and beat-matching.

At that time I had a band with my cousins; we were dancing, beat-boxing, and rapping. Dancing was, by far, the main thing back then. Hometown shoplifters were hustling BDP and Big Daddy Kane LP’s, and I started to make beats using my mom’s old turntable and cassette player.

In March 1992 I met Manu Key and Kery James. They had a band called IDEAL JUNIOR, they needed a 15 years old DJ. Joining them is the most important thing ever happened to my DJ life. Also, they introduced me to song production, which became my favourite thing to do, apart from eating and having sex.