There’s a particularly touching moment in a recent FADER profile of the Montreal-based producer Kaytranada. Kay, whose real name is Louis Kevin Celestin, moved from Haiti to Canada with his family when he was an infant, and his father retains a strong sense of national pride. When Kaytranada plays his dad a song from his debut album, 99.9%, the music sparks a rush of patriotic excitement. “Now I understand that he didn’t forget Haiti!” his father exclaims. “You can feel it!”
It’s possible to guess at the characteristics Kay’s father had in mind. Among Haitian music’s distinct features is an insistent focus on complex rhythms, many of them imported from African music and Dominican merengue, as well as a more general willingness to incorporate various countries’ homegrown styles into a cohesive whole. The genre-defying stew of funk, soul, R&B, and beat and dance music that Kaytranada has cooked up on 99.9% nods back at that heritage of percussion-driven synthesis.
Kay first made his name as a Soundcloud standout and dance DJ, but he has the mentality of a musico-archaeologist, digging past yesterday’s obvious pop gems to unearth the overlooked. In its sonic diversity, his album is reminiscent of Madlib’s crate-digging dynamism, but unlike a lot of instrumental hip-hop (or the house artists he’s sometimes grouped with), Kay’s beats are not at all rigid or predictable. His drums are configured strangely, bending, shifting, doubling back. With those rhythms, and his own custom-made synths, the 23-year-old shows himself to be a strong-willed studio auteur on a mix of instrumental and lyric-based tracks.
Several standout drummers were recruited for the record, including Karriem Riggins and Alexander Sowinski of the Toronto jazz outfit BADBADNOTGOOD, but even the tracks that don’t feature a guest percussionist are studded with polyrhythms. The chillwave synths that kick off the album opener, “Track Uno,” prop up restless rhythms that morph several times throughout the song. They drive it forward into the Riggins feature “Bus Ride,” and the momentum never lets up.
Kay’s inventive percussion keeps the album upbeat, but it’s often a dreamy, mellow listen, perhaps a result of the producer’s effort to broaden perceptions of his capabilities. Many of the featured collaborators, including Phonte, Syd, and Anderson .Paak, are hip-hop adjacent artists who have refused to be constrained by the dogmas of the genre, something that seems to have inspired Kay. Syd and Phonte in particular, have helped to define a contemporary, melodic take on funk, combining soul, R&B, and a dash of electronica. Their features, “One Too Many” and “You’re the One,” on which Kay showcases his love for warmly shimmering synths, are two of the album’s strongest.