PARIS, FRANCE (Top40 Charts) On 13
September 2011 according to DJMag, famous DJ Mehdi was on the roof of his home in Paris with a group of friends celebrating the birthday of Riton. Mehdi received a fatal injury and three others were hospitalized after the roof collapsed. He was 34 years old.
Mehdi Fav?ris-Essadi (20 January 1977 - 13 September 2011), better known by his stage name DJ Mehdi, was a French hip hop and electro producer. Mehdi was born of Tunisian background in Hauts-de-Seine, the northwestern suburbs of Paris. He was a former disc jockey of the groups Different Teep (ex-group of Manu Key & Lil Jahson), Ideal J and former member of the collective the Mafia K'1 Fry. He was also a long time the quasi-appointed producer of the group 113 and carried out the nearly all the production of the albums for Different Teep and Karlito. Amid his work, Mehdi had remixed various electronic acts and composition soundtracks for many French and international films.
Being recognized for his efforts and budding into one of the French underground hip hop music scene's premier producers, since then he has pushed the boundaries by mixing hip hop and electronic music. Collaboration with such notable artists of the likes of Daft Punk, Cassius, MC Solaar, Futura 2000, Asian Dub Foundation and Chromeo among others. 'Coming from a rap music background, it's always nice to collaborate within other music genres... Paris is very inspiring because a lot of people are making great stuff, music and in other arts related fields also. My music and philosophies revolve around beats and blues, that's how I would try to describe it.'
Signing to cross-genre label Ed Banger Records, Mehdi and Pedro Winter (aka Busy P) were working on various disco-hop sounds the two as far back as 1997. Together they hosted a very successful monthly night at former Paris nightspot Pulp. 'I like to be the DJ, I love it so much. I love to try new things. You would never get into this business to be bored, or you would hope not.'
Mehdi released his first full-length LP in 2002 The Story of Espion, followed by his second album, Lucky Boy, in August 2006. With the popularity of cross genre hip hop into such areas as indie and electronic music, popularization by Timbaland and other labels from the United States in more recent years had assisted to bridge the gap between dance genres.
Mehdi's single "I Am Somebody" was used in a 2007 American commercial for XM radio. More recently, DJ Mehdi has been part of a group of friends and DJ's collectively known as "Club 75" which includes Cassius, Busy P and Xavier de Rosnay (Justice). He launched a project together with Riton in 2010 that's called "Carte Blanche".
Mehdi was married to well-known French artist and model Fafi.
