Just as Jamie Jones and the Hot Natured crew were branded as being the latest collective to mark the beginnings of House music dominating the charts, it seems we are now in a new era and theres one name that keeps popping up, KAYTRANADA. A young Canadian Hip Hop DJ & producer with bundles of talent!
He first caught our eye around 2 years ago with his remix of Teedra Moses – Be your girl, a track that every DJ on the planet needs in order to finish any set correctly. Now with a smoking hot remix roster including Amerie, Missy Elliot, Flume, Janet Jackson as well as holding down a residency on BBC Radio One.
Last Friday the man of the moment hosted his own night at London’s Brixton Academy with some handpicked guests to play alongside him, including Sango, Benji B & Vic Mensa.
HS were happy to be invited and even bumped into another emerging soulful talent, Jordan Rakei on the way in.
So we arrive around 10:15pm and just in time for start of Benji B’s set, the venue is already filling up and the energy is electric. Something about a Friday night that gives Londoners that added buzz! Immediately you notice the age of the crowd, I would guess an average of 22, rocking oversize T-shirts & prepped to dance.
Benji mixed things up, he went from Hip Hop to grime and dropped a few classic house tracks in there too, it was the perfect warm up from a worldly respected selector. Even the irritating sloping floor didn’t stop anyone from shaking a leg.
Next up American singer/rapper Vic Mensa gave us an energetic 45 minute live set, finishing off with his 2014 hit, ‘Down on my luck’.
Kaytranada hit the stage around 12:15, I was hoping he would kick off with his remake of The Roots – Silent Treatment but he came with something new. In the 2 hours that followed let’s just say we lost a lot of sweat. Some people who have seen him live will say he jumps genres too sharply but we do not agree, having spent many years in Ibiza listening to the same monotonous 123 bpm tech house this was so refreshing. He gave us all of his classics with a tonne of exclusive ‘kick you in the chest’ bass lines.
Although still very much the underground, it feels like we have been shown the future of Hip Hop. It can’t be long before the likes of Sango & IAMNOBODI are producing for Hip Hops biggest stars.
Future beats & Future soul, are some of the names the Hip Hop sub-genre has been given with its signature bass heavy melodies & rolling hats.
Heavy Silence 