{"id":22770,"date":"2020-02-04T23:34:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T04:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=22770"},"modified":"2020-02-04T23:34:31","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T04:34:31","slug":"review-kaytranada-igloofest-2-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/02\/04\/review-kaytranada-igloofest-2-1\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: KAYTRANADA @ Igloofest 2\/1"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Olivia Amitay<\/em><\/p>\n

On Saturday, February 1st, KAYTRANADA took the stage at Igloofest in Montreal, coined the \u201ccoldest electronic music festival in the world\u201d.\u00a0 So what made it worth it to drive five hours to below-freezing Canada and embody a sardine in a crowd of thousands? It wasn\u2019t the <\/span>Yeti hype men<\/span><\/a> who circled the festival, the towering snow slides, or the head-turning neon snowsuits that reinforced the aesthetic of the festival\u00a0 (though those were definitely added benefits). Instead, it was the electrifying performance that KAYTRANADA delivered to his hometown.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Haitian-Canadian DJ and Producer started DJing at 14 and has released a total of 13 projects and 41 remixes since then. However, it was KAYTRANADA\u2019s sophomore studio album <\/span>BUBBA, <\/span><\/i>that the crowd at Igloofest was anticipating.\u00a0 Like KAYTRANADA\u2019s award-winning debut album <\/span>99.9%, BUBBA <\/span><\/i>is jam-packed with illustrious features such as Pharrell Williams, Kali Uchis, Estelle, GoldLink, and more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While this impressive Igloofest performance was not officially part of the <\/span>BUBBA <\/span><\/i>tour, KAYTRANADA made sure to include 12 out of the 17 tracks on the album into his setlist.\u00a0 KAYTRANADA kicked off his set with \u201cFreefall\u201d and I was immediately taken aback by the contrast between the DJ\u2019s notorious drums\/synths combo and the silky-smooth voice of Durand Bernarr.\u00a0 Whether intended or not, \u201cFreefall\u201d was an excellent first song to play because it made me, \u201cwanna let go, freefall\u201d as the lyric suggests, and it got the crowd to abandon any external worries and prepare to live in the moment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

KAYTRANADA then seamlessly transitioned from Bernarr\u2019s liberating high notes to the funky afro-beat influenced \u201cMidsection\u201d featuring Pharrell Williams.\u00a0 \u201cMidsection\u201d samples \u201cMande Moin<\/span> On <\/span>Lajan<\/span>, <\/span>Pa Mande Moin Za Fe An Moin\u201d by The Group NSI, a Haitian band.\u00a0 While \u201cMidsection\u201d is a subtle ode to his heritage, KAYTRANADA made a more deliberate cheers to his black identity later in the concert.\u00a0 To kick off Black History Month, KAYTRANADA played an audio recording of himself saying, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna have a celebration of being black. Do y’all understand that? Do you understand what it means to be black?\u201d followed by a very explicit command for the crowd to jump up and have fun for the next song.\u00a0 What followed was the eerie synths that everyone knew was the precursor to one of the greatest beat drops that KAYTRANADA has ever created. \u201cGlowed Up\u201d featuring Anderson .Paak, was not only a tasteful song to encompass black excellence in the music industry, but also a song that simply does not receive justice listened to through a car speaker or AirPods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the question still remains: at a big festival like Igloofest, how do you set yourself apart from the rest of the performers? And as some electronic music skeptics may say, how do you put on a good performance when you don\u2019t have unforgettable live vocals or notorious guitar solos as other concerts do?\u00a0 It appears that KAYTRANADA has found the answer. This Montreal native stole the festival by indirectly showing the entire crowd the influence he has had on modern hip-hop\/dance music. Several times during the concert I would scratch my head and go, \u201cWait a second, KAYTRANADA produced this too?!\u201d From \u201cAll Night\u201d by Chance the Rapper, to \u201cMeditation\u201d by Goldlink, this setlist reminded me of how many songs KAYTRANADA has blessed with his unique production style.\u00a0 He also played his remixes of songs such as \u201cKiss it Better\u201d by Rihanna, \u201cBe Your Girl\u201d by Teedra Moses, \u201cRoll (Burbank Funk)\u201d by the Internet, and many more renditions that I favor over the originals. Another way KAYTRANADA brought life to his set was by <\/span>busting moves up on stage\u00a0 <\/span><\/a>and constantly checking up on the crowd rather than lifelessly hiding behind the DJ booth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t crazy enough to trek it to Montreal for the weekend, don’t fret! KAYTRANADA just announced his official <\/span>BUBBA <\/span><\/i>tour and will be stopping at the House of Blues in Boston on April 30th.\u00a0 Buy your <\/span>tickets<\/span><\/a> now if you want a remarkable experience that will be the destination of your daydreams for weeks after the show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Olivia Amitay On Saturday, February 1st, KAYTRANADA took the stage at Igloofest in Montreal, coined the \u201ccoldest electronic music festival in the world\u201d.\u00a0 So what made it worth it to drive five hours to below-freezing Canada and embody a sardine in a crowd of thousands? It wasn\u2019t the Yeti hype men who circled the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17168,"featured_media":22771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525],"tags":[327,1553,1554,1555],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22772,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22770\/revisions\/22772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}