Booty Bakery: Montreal’s Next Wave
When Montreal’s Booty Bakery was set up by Compton Chic, Phil Sparkz and Bongiovanni in October 2011, little could they have known that their party would set the tone for a new generation of beatsmiths. A tight-knit circle of friends is making noise in Montreal right now, writes Anthony Obst, and the connecting thread is an eclectic, genre-defying range that can be traced back to the inclusive approach of the city’s prime weekly.
“Booty Bakery is definitely the main weekly that’s going on right now,” Brendan Neal of Grown Folk says after not so much as a second of deliberation. “For me, coming from Vermont, where there was absolutely zero exposure to any [electronic music], it was almost like an instantaneous thing when I came to Montreal. I started going to these parties and there was such an energy about it. As an 18-year old kid, who had never really gone out before, never lived in a city, and never experienced any music like that, it was just really exciting.” Upon his move to Montreal five years ago, Brandon linked up with fellow out-of-towner Dru and they started producing electro and house cuts as Grown Folk. Since 2011, the duo has racked up releases for Templar Sound and Icee Hot, as well as a collaborative effort with hazy Bay Area rap combo Main Attrakionz.
Theirs is a common story among the producers shaking things up in Montreal’s music scene at the moment. Moving to the city at an impressionable age. Diversifying their hip hop background through dance music. Finding a home at Booty Bakery – the local party that has made this particular in-between-space their forte.
We were the first party where it wasn’t a hip hop party or a dubstep party. We were just playing everything.
“We all met in the after-party-scene,” explains Booty Bakery’s Compton Chic. “Tommy Kruise, Hesk, me, Bongiovanni… We’re all friends cause we used to party together. That’s where we all met and started to do shit. We did parties and then all of these things unravelled from it.” Besides consistently housing the local hotshots and in-house residents, Booty Bakery has brought people like Addison Groove, Doc Daneeka, Venus X, Ryan Hemsworth, Girl Unit, Salva, French Fries and Nguzunguzu to Montreal over the past 18 months.
A few years ago Montreal’s music scene was dominated by “turbo crunk,” the sound that had served as an initial springboard for local acts like Lunice, Megasoid and Jacques Greene. Then came the warped wave of head-jerking dubstep. “The popular DJs in the city started to play music to cater to people,” Compton Chic reminisces. “That’s when all the original people didn’t want to go there anymore, because they didn’t want to listen to mainstream dubstep. We were the first party where it wasn’t a hip hop party or a dubstep party or a dancehall party. We were just playing everything.”
Phil Sparkz and Compton Chic Credit: https://wearemansion.ca
Hesk is a perfect example of the sort of producer that has found a home at Booty Bakery. A Dutch émigré, he started making hip hop beats in his bedroom before creating the montrealdubstep blog. He soon tired of the chainsaw-infatuated genre and moved on to footwork. Alongside high school friends Paveun and Chickenboy2k6, Hesk’s prolific output has made it seem that Montreal is some sort of hotbed for the Chicago-born sound. “This guy from Vancouver recently wanted to talk to me about the ‘footwork scene’ in Montreal – but it doesn’t really exist,” he laughs. “A lot of places have their own, local sound. But Montreal doesn’t really have that.” Able to seamlessly flip between sounds, it’s no wonder he’s now an official part of the Bakery crew.
If you were to designate the next Montreal hitter, it would have to be Kaytranada.
Another longstanding Booty Bakery associate is Haitian-born knob twister Kaytranada. Having moved from the Montreal suburbs into the city around the same time the night got underway, the full-blown hip hop-head reached a next level with his productions upon his re-settlement. In Montreal terms, Kaytranada’s sound is often characterized as part of the glossy, blip-filled approach to beat music that has become known as “piu piu.” But his latest Kaytra Todo EP is really a mixed bag of tasty tidbits ranging from sluggish wonk to soulful house shuffles, with lots of booming low-end and lashing snares in between.
If you were to designate the next Montreal hitter, it would have to be Kaytranada: Boiler Room appearances, JMSN features, Sango collaborations, Soulection and Jakarta affiliations, a European tour in the works – it seems as though it’s currently only a matter of time before Kaytra steps up to the ranks of the similarly-wired Lunice. “I think we’re at a point here in Montreal where the scene is about to blow up, where people would love to come here just to know what’s happening. And I think others will also be inspired by what we’re doing right now.”
Ryan Hemsworth and Tommy Kruise Credit: C Pariseau
Tommy Kruise has already proved to be an inspiration of sorts. A jack of all trades, DJ extraordinaire and born troublestarter with a heart of gold, Tommy somehow managed to get his portrait printed on shirts that are now sported by the likes of Ryan Hemsworth and ASAP Yamz. “I really don’t know how that even started,” says Tommy giggling with a hint of honest pride. “I just posted that shit on Instagram and Facebook and then it took off.” Tommy is among the more hip hop-inclined of the collective: Last year’s Memphis Confidential Vol. 1 EP was an affectionate ode to the lo-fi proto-crunk popularized by the Hypnotized Mind Posse circa 1995.
In fact, Tommy is as close to a walking underground hip hop encyclopedia as it gets. “I grew up on Madlib, MF DOOM, Jay Dee, Buckwild, all that.” He claims to have listened to the entire DJ Screw discography four or five times. A consummate networker, he knows everyone in Montreal, and everyone knows him. “It’s a big community. Montreal is a small city, so we all know each other. Even the older crews. Everyone is really down with what people have going on right now.”
The community aspect is also what's drawing Tommy’s pal Black Atlass back into the city from London, Ontario. The NoiR&B crooner/producer's dusky and introverted tracks aren’t really the kind that you would catch at a club, but don’t act surprised if the compressed snare of “Castles” off his debut EP slaps you clean in the face at a Booty Bakery show. Atlass is currently in the process of moving back to Montreal, where he grew up as a kid. “I just feel like it’s the right place for me to be, in order to progress where I’m going with my music... Playing a show in Montreal, you can tell that the audience is genuinely interested. They’re there to listen and to have a good time. They wanna see you succeed and they wanna help you in any way they can.” Or, as Compton Chic puts it towards the end of our chat, “Everyone’s in it together.”
