Buckwild and beaming, Mehdi Cayenne is a journeyman, truly unclassifiable on the Canadian scene.
With a palette mixing pop and alternative sounds, he has -through four LPs “Luminata” in 2011, “Na Na Boo Boo” in 2013,
“Aube” in 2015 and “Radio Batata” in 2019 – developed his eclectic approach, earning awards and rave reviews. He’s acquired a palpable stage presence with performances across Canada, and in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Armenia and Russia, playing with diverse artists (Sam Roberts Band, A Tribe Called Red, Saul Williams, Socalled, Random Recipe, Safia Nolin, US Girls) on big stages all over (POP Montreal, Francos de Montréal, Ottawa Bluesfest, MaMA). “Radio Batata” was co-produced with Olivier Fairfield (Fet Nat), Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Colin Stetson), and Nico Quéré (Arctic Monkeys, Nick Cave); it has accumulated thousands of rotations on SiriusXM, CBC Radio 3, and Stingray, reaching the Top 5 on Stingray’s “Franco Attitude”.
Also an accomplished facilitator, poet and radio artist (he’s offered dozens of chronicles at Radio-Canada, and the podcast “L’écorce et le noyau” he co-produced has been nominated for the biggest awards in the field), Mehdi Cayenne is a quintessentially Canadian polymath, with no equivalent in the current cultural landscape.