Lary Kidd

Lary Kidd is like a black hole at the centre of his records. The Montreal rapper, who rose to fame in Quebec and throughout Canada as a member of the trio Loud Lary Ajust, has such gravity that a whirlwind of component parts—the heavier, more maximal strains of 2010s hip-hop; stories of psychological strife and hedonistic escape; two languages—seem to swirl around one another until they collapse into a single point of totalising force. Kidd’s solo debut, 2017’s Contrôle, showcases that sort of growling unease alongside true-school MCing that set him apart among peers on either side of the border. By the beginning of the 2020s, Kidd was channelling this unmistakable energy into songs like “Costco freestyle”, where his gripping crime vignettes are arranged into rhythms so precise that they can also work on a purely percussive level—a true lingua franca.