![]() "4EVA," the Pharrell-assisted lead single, has a sticky, propellant chorus resting pleasantly in the pocket between sweaty nightclub dance floor and tipsy summer block party. On the opener he claims to be "one of the few men who know where the clit is." His hooks are sterling - gruff and plosive when the occasion calls for it, lithe and limber elsewhere. ![]() Aminé raps with more cheeky temerity here than he has perhaps anywhere else. From the very first track, "Who He Iz," to the triumphant two-part closer, "K&A," the record runs like a compilation of their best musical instincts compressed, refined and fine-tuned to a punchy summer frequency. And, if any wrinkles were left, they've been smoothed out on KAYTRAMINÉ. It feels somewhat like kismet that, despite their different arcs and very different approaches, Kaytranada and Aminé's trajectories have led them right back to one another. For Aminé, this has culminated in projects like 2020's Limbo - a collection of the buoyant, melodic raps he made his name on, some trunk-rattling trap and a marked progression in vocal technique-and 2021's TWOPOINTFIVE, a 26-minute, frenetic sugar rush of dexterous rhyming and dazzling hooks. His major label debut, Good For You, was suffused with the same kind of technicolor juvenility that propelled his breakout single, but as the years have progressed, the now-29-year-old has diversified his sound and settled into a more relaxed pose. After Calling Brio, the Portland rapper was very suddenly catapulted into the mainstream as a precocious, gap-toothed provocateur with 2016's "Caroline." The single - a massive streaming hit that has been registered 6x platinum - bears all the hallmarks of what would become Aminé staples: a goofy affability, staccato bursts of irreverent wordplay and a sticky pop hook. These days, the introvert-cum-superstar commands top-billing at Coachella (performing before a giant replica of his own head), and owns two Grammys.Īminé, for his part, has also undergone a bit of a transformation. His full-length debut, 99.9%, released on XL, was awarded Canada's prestigious Polaris Music Prize. All the while, his lore only grew, attracting the admiration and attention of more famous peers. Despite touring the globe, playing festivals and opening for acts like Madonna, the chronically shy 23-year-old continued to live in the basement of his mom's home in suburban Montreal, sharing a bedroom with his younger brother. His favored reverb-y hand claps, crisp hi-hats and extraterrestrial synths had become a bit of a calling card. In 2014, the Haitian-Quebecois producer had made a name for himself as a kind of remix savant, molding R&B classics like Janet Jackson's "If" and TLC's "Creep" into swinging club tracks and thumping beat-scene anthems. Since that fateful early exchange, the artists' respective sounds have evolved with their profiles. The ace 11-track album, replete with a radio-worthy single and a some of the best crafted verses and beats of their respective careers, is emblematic of artists who, not only have migrated from the margins to the mainstream, but are operating with a level of comfort and confidence that they could have previously only dreamed of. If this origin story - a shot in the dark becoming a pivotal career turning point - is the prologue, then KAYTRAMINÉ, their new collaborative project, is a fitting afterword. It was a moment that established Aminé's swaggering hip-hop-outsider persona and provided proof of concept for his ebullient brand of pop-rap. The free beats that Kaytranada sent back eventually ended up on his mixtape, Calling Brio, a project that ingratiated the Portland rapper with the music blogosphere and, ultimately, helped earn him a spot alongside megawatt acts like Ariana Grande and The Weeknd at Republic Records. "I was broke as f*** working on music everyday in 2014 looking for a north star," he recalled on Twitter last week. His signature bounce, Aminé hoped, would provide the boost he was looking for. Said producer, Kaytranada, already had a growing cult following on SoundCloud and an iconic Boiler Room set. The then-20-year-old soon-to-be dropout at Portland State University hoped a few beats from a buzzing DJ and producer in Montreal would help give him some much needed juice. In July of 2014, the marketing student and would-be rapper Aminé sent out a wishful Twitter DM attempting to get his fledgling music career off the ground.
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