Get to know Djebali, one of the new stars of the Paris house scene

“I get so many supportive emails and messages, I just wish I had the time to reply to them all!” says Mehdi Djebali. The 32-year-old Parisian producer has picked up a large and loyal following over the course of his career, particularly over the last couple of years thanks to the steady flow of high quality house productions he’s been behind, largely on his own label. “The new generation from Paris are all so talented and the level of production is so high that I’m honoured to be seen as one of the city’s new ‘stars’,” he says.

As a youngster Djebali was a French hip hop fanatic, and learned to DJ with a friend who was into ultra-fast hardcore music. In order to come to a compromise with the music they practiced with, Djebali and his friend picked up house records to play, and his love affair with the music began. He was soon recording every radio show hosted by his hero (and now friend) Dan Ghenacia, eagerly hunting down the tunes he heard and adding them to his growing collection.

Djebali’s first release was with Jay Haze’s ‘Tuning Spork’ back in 2008, a label he idolised at the time. It was the first of many long-held ambitions he has achieved in his house music lifetime, from curating his own party at Paris’s legendary Rex Club to a residency at the hallowed grounds of DC10 in Ibiza for the last few summers and, most recently, his debut album, entitled ‘5’ and released on his own label. He locked himself away for five months in order to get the album done, working on all 12 tracks simultaneously to maintain consistency across the LP. “When I finished the project I realised I actually still have a lot more to say, musically, so I won’t be waiting five years to do another one,” he quips. “I really enjoyed the process of making ‘5’; I found a brand new space to work in and moved all my equipment there, reconnecting all the wires one by one. It took a month to set it up before I could even start work, but it was worth it!”

Fresh off the back of his album tour, Djebali has returned to his studio full of new ideas and buoyed by the reception he received in territories such as Peru and Argentina. But he’s still hungry for more and has his heart set on more festival bookings and finding more artists he can collaborate with. “I’m definitely up for working with other producers, it’s something I’ve done but would love to do a lot more of,” he says. “Apart from that I’m really happy with how everything is going: I’m making the music I love, travelling the world and, best of all, making a living from it. It’s a dream!”

****‘5’ by Djebali is out now on (djebali)****