The year is 2016. It is June, and you and your friends are spending the summer days going to new places, eating at new restaurants, and making the most of the warm weather. You go out at night and misbehave without a care in the world. Life is simple, and the music is good, but what’s on rotation? If you were in my circle - it would certainly be a cornucopia of both commercial and strange music. On some days, we would play Travis Scott’s Rodeo, Kanye’s The Life of Pablo, Drake’s Views, and maybe even Chance’s Coloring Book if we were feeling like it. On others we would play Blank Banshee’s Blank Banshee 0, The Avalanches’ Wildflower, Anderson .Paak’s Malibu, and Toro Y Moi’s Samantha. No album, however, got as much airtime as Kaytranada’s first studio album, 99.9%.

I cannot even describe how much this album meant to me back then. I had just graduated high school, and I was in one of the best eras of my life. When people make memes about Summer ‘16 being the last time they felt happy, I understand exactly what they mean, even though I don’t think that it was all downhill from there (like Frank Ocean would say at the end of the summer on 2016’s Blonde). Kaytranada’s unique synthesis of electronic, dance, hip-hop, and funk music made for an album packed with simultaneously chill and hyped-up tracks like ‘GOT IT GOOD’ with Craig David, or the mega-hit ‘GLOWED UP’ with Anderson .Paak, who at that point was still relatively unknown. I hate to be cliché, but this was the soundtrack to my summer, and things never really went back to normal once I started college that fall.

Since then I have tracked Kaytranada’s career like a borderline psychopath. In doing so I have inadvertently developed an eerily accurate ear for his production style, so when listening to a new album I can identify whether or not kaytranada worked on the record or not. My enthusiasm for the Montreal-DJ has made me into a bit of a know-it-all, but I don’t care. I could talk for hours about his unreleased tracks and where he played them, his infamous Boiler Room set and the various characters that weave in and out of the frame, and even the artists that were rumored to have been in the studio with him. For over three long years, I waited for a new record, devouring the handful of singles we were treated to as they were released. Eventually, in November of 2019, a new record was announced and shortly thereafter released. Finally Kaytranada’s sophomore album Bubba was here, and my expectations were sky-high.

The Question: Could it live up to the hype, and reignite a youthful exuberance that had been waning since that fateful romantic summer of 2016?

The Answer: Kind of? Allow me to explain.

Bubba sees the return of Kaytranada doing what he does best - synthesizing electronic and funk together into fun bouncy club bangers. This time around, he has brought out many more friends than he did in 2016. This record features contributions from artists like Tinashe, Pharrell Williams, Mick Jenkins, Estelle, Vanjess, Masego, Kali Uchis, SiR, Goldlink, and Ari PenSmith. Clearly the budget for this record is enormous, but does this translate into good music? For the most part - yes it does.

‘2 The Music’ is a classic intense Kaytranada dance track with an unconventional chord structure, a mix that sounds better than sex and more low frequencies than my Apple AirPods can handle. Mick Jenkins and Kali Uchis both do their thing on their respective tracks, lending their sing-rapping over Kaytranada’s production brilliance, and for the most part the album does not disappoint. For some reason, however, this album has me craving more. This is not so much due to my ravenous nature as a Kaytranada fan, but I feel that Bubba, while impressive and enjoyable, sees Kaytranada integrating more elements from R&B, dancehall and afrobeat styles of music than funk and hip-hop. This is not a bad thing by itself, but on a 17-track record like Bubba the repetition can negatively impact how ‘replayable’ some of the tracks become as they age.

Take for example ‘Midsection’ featuring the GOAT Pharrell Williams. This song in a vacuum is enjoyable, as there is nothing wrong with it sonically and if I heard it at a party I would surely be excited. The structure of the song however features little variance despite the track being almost five minutes in length - an eternity for a dance track. The low-fidelity vocal melodies are fun but I have slowly noticed myself skipping this song more and more as it has come up when shuffling my music. The merits of the track, at least for me, quickly become circumstantial, and I am left looking at my individual track ratings that I allotted to the album last December (mostly 4 and 5 stars) with more and more confusion. I wish I could go back to when the album was new to me - a sentiment that I now hold for both of Kaytranada’s albums.

It must be said that Kaytranada’s work on Bubba in perfecting his craft is apparent, as ‘The Worst In Me’ with Tinashe showcases just how much of an apex R&B powerhouse Kaytranada has become. There are other tracks just like this, though despite them exemplifying production expertise, they are far too similar to the sounds heard 3 years ago to make much of a lasting impact. Then there are other tracks that venture into new musical sounds, but are too repetitive to justify listening to for the song’s whole duration. ‘Puff Lah’ is a 2 minute track that continuously loops an eight second dance loop. It is enjoyable while it is on, but after a while the song changes and you can barely remember what the song sounded like despite its repetitiveness.

Bubba is a great record, whose greatest flaw lies in that its innovations do not resonate with someone with my music tastes. There are certainly many enjoyable tracks that may not age as gracefully this time around, as compared to 2016’s 99.9%, but that is not to say the record was not worth the wait. Maybe it did not revive my youthful vigor, but instead it helped put things into perspective. To be 22, and to write about myself at 18 like I am 60 years old is frankly ridiculous. Kaytranada and I both have changed since the simple comforting summer days years ago, and to expect that this record would take us both back while mirroring 99% is both unfair and unrealistic. In many ways this album is a meditation on aging and the progression of an artist, as it both innovates from and recedes into previous musical styles already perfected by Kaytranada. I hope that this album ages well and enters my weekly rotation over the next three years, and I know that the next time Kaytranada releases music I will be eager to listen.

Favorite Tracks

2 The Music (Feat. Iman Omari)

Grey Area (Feat. Mick Jenkins)

The Worst in Me (Feat. Tinashe)

Rating: 7

Listen to BUBBA here:

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