Kaytranada

One Liner: Groovy electronic producer with a bunch of B-list singers.

Wikipedia Genre: Electronic, hip hop, R&B, dance
Home: Montreal, Canada

Poster Position: 17

Weekend One Only.

Thoughts:  When I saw this on the poster, I thought we were sticking with the badass women rapper vibe found elsewhere on here, but now I realize that I was thinking of Kamaiyah, the Oakland lady rapper who won my heart a few years ago before putting on a very lackluster show at that year's ACL Fest.  This is not that lady.

Instead, this is Louis Celestin, a Canadian DJ originally from Haiti who makes beats for other folks to use.  He originally went by Kaystradamus before switching his name up.  According to an interview, he "decided to change the name because I wanted to be unique. I started this stupid “trap” shit randomly and then Flosstradamus existed so I wanted an original name. So I thought Kaytranada like Canada or Nada for Nothing… Kaytra or nada… I kinda wished that I changed my name for Kaytra but it’s too late. Oh well."  I have little to no understanding of what the hell that means.  He wanted his name to sound like Canada Nada?  You actually pronounce the name as Kay Truh Nada.

He makes beats like an electronic guy, but nothing like the EDM type stuff.  This is more like a crate-digging record producer who is taking all sorts of different stuff and melding it together into a good backing track for someone else to make their own.

Just one album - 2016's 99.9% - that is full of semi-star-studded guest spots for the vocal in each track.  The Anderson.Paak one is great.  I like the GoldLink one.  Dunno who or what Phonte is, but that one is pretty solid.  I like BadBadNotGood.  But none of these are megastar collabos - Vic Mensa or Craig David are the kind of guys you have heard of, but they aren't top ten in their field.  The Paak one almost wins the stream battle, but one with someone named Syd wins instead.  This is "YOU'RE THE ONE" with 46.1 million streams.

Huh.  I kept waiting for the true prince to reveal himself on some Coming to America shit.  Song is fine, funky and bouncy and fun.  The album won a Juno Award (Electronic Album of the Year) and a Polaris for Canadian Album of the Year in 2016.  I recall hearing his name back then, because this album was on a lot of end-of-year lists.  However, to be honest, I just don't like this music.

I'll give you his most recent single, released in April and with 3.5 million streams so far.  "DYSFUNCTIONAL."

Has a Disclosure vibe to it, with the sound of those synths.  Groovy though, like I can feel myself give in to the beat and bob my head a little.  But then the songs just bleed together a little bit and its all this heavy groove and guest vocalist bopping along.  No beef if someone loves this guy, just not my jam.