Getting to know Petit Biscuit
French producer Petit Biscuit just dropped his debut album Presence (on his 18th birthday!). We asked him to tell us about himself:
I am Mehdi Benjelloun, I am 18-years-old and I come from France. I started music three years ago under the moniker PETIT BISCUIT. I produce electronic music, sometimes tinted with pop, other times with rock or world music – and more. My father is Moroccan and my mother is French. I come from a mixed background, and I’m inspired – every day and in my music – by this.
Presence is my first album. Presence is an album filled with urges and schizophrenia, alongside poetry. Presence surely represents my own way of being human, of learning, of being inspired, of being me, of doing foolishness, of not succeeding and starting everything again. I wanted this album to be dense and varied. Presence is home to 14 tracks, all tinted with various influences. I wanted Presence to be an album filled with music, hanging around current musical influences and timeless music. I wanted to revive a modernity in some very old influences, which have their source at the beginning of mankind.
Home is my composition sanctuary. I have always chosen my bedroom to be my production place. You feel particularly nice at home. It’s a place where you have grown up for decades, you can’t feel more yourself than at home. Of course, my room starts to be filled with instruments of all types, but there is a vibe I cannot find anywhere else to produce music.
I spend too much time in clothing shops. I am like an 8-year-old child : I cannot choose. I am sure of the fact that I will spend more time to choose my ice cream flavour than my next flat. I don’t know how to decide, I always want to be sure that I make the right choice. It’s surely the same thing in music. I spend a lot of time creating my tracks so I’m certain to select the right version… It’s important to be meticulous, but it can be worrying, I need to calm down!
I’ve never eaten cabbage. Unlike my friends, I do not have the taste of a 3-year-old, and yet it always repelled me… More seriously, I could make a never-ending list of what I’ve never done. I am an 18-year-old teenager, discovering life as I grow. That allows me to include a natural hint of innocence in my music.
It might surprise people to learn that I am a big rap fan. I listen to a lot a French and US rap music. That could have surprised people some time ago, but nowadays, people are more or less open-minded on what others listen. Most of the people I know are as big of a fan as rap as electronic music…
In 2018, I hope to reach more and more people with my music. To think always bigger, harder for my gigs. Anyhow, I still see myself producing in my bedroom, looking how to get the most of my musical ideas.
…
Keep up to date with Petit Biscuit on Facebook.
Interview by Bobby Townsend.
