For Kaytranada, everything starts with the drums. The Canadian producer builds tracks from percussion outward, perhaps opening with a hi-hat, then adding a bassline and kick drums and only afterward seeking chords that may suit the foundation. His terrific new album Bubba opens with one second of drumming before the beat switches and his signature synths arrive. On a more conventional pop record, this might be interpreted as an arbitrary gesture given how quickly it passes. But nothing on Bubba is accidental. The album capitalizes on the promise of Kaytranada’s 2016 debut, 99.9% and blesses this woeful decade with one last great dance record.
With 99.9%, Kaytranada established himself as a producer with a well-defined and influential sensibility. It was sample-heavy and for all of Kay’s digital chops, the production still felt analog: The synths shook and the drums swung. It was also collaborative in the best possible sense. Kaytranada’s sense of purpose was strong enough to yoke the other artists to his intent. In one of the few interviews he gave in the run-up to Bubba’s release, he described how he cajoles potential features. “Some people just want the usual, basic stuff they’re comfortable with,” he said. “You have to work to push them out of their comfort zone.”
Nevertheless, Bubba sounds very comfortable. It’s a dance album front-to-back, fun, confident, always keeping you in perpetual motion, no matter what might be happening around you (train delay, being mugged, the heat death of the universe). Take “Taste,” whose snapping beat is complicated by an uncooperative bass. Only two other instruments are necessary: topaz synths and the voice of VanJess, the Nigerian-American duo with businesslike vocals. It’s perhaps the simplest song here and like almost all the others, an undeniable dancefloor summons. (Kaytranada frequently uses the voices of his collaborators to reference the sounds of the early 2000s; When TDE’s SiR isn’t pitching his voice Anderson .Paak style, his layered voice recalls the songs of 112 or Jagged Edge, both because of the harmonies that end his bars on “Go DJ” and the fact that he sings the lyric, “Where the party at.”)
It does the record a small disservice to pull songs out at random like this. Both “Taste” and “Go DJ” are followed by tracks that lead out naturally like the flow of a DJ set. But that exceptional flow leaves room for punctuation marks, and several come when Kaytranada feels perfectly in tune with his collaborators. The first of these is “10%” with Kali Uchis. Three different beats, piled high like sedimentary layers, herald her alto, and she spends the remainder of the song surfing atop the beat. Kaytranada has similar chemistry with GoldLink on the song “Vex Oh,” and a cameo from Estelle on “Oh No” delivers the same promise that the Craig David feature “Got It Good,” did on the previous album.
The superficial outro “Midsection” featuring Pharrell and his falsetto might be the only track on which Kaytranada’s collaborator overrides him to the song’s detriment. But that only emphasizes how strong the other tracks are. Kaytranada uses vocalists as an additional instrument. (Lyrics have always seemed to function more as pure sound for him than anything else; he values the textures of words above their meanings.) So it’s particularly fun to see what he does when that tool isn’t available, as on the standout instrumental “Scared to Death.” Here, Kay stacks those strobing synths he favors on top of bass and on top of that, places a melodic build—a minute in, he pulls the bass out momentarily to let things ride for a moment. The room continues to rotate. A mournful airhorn sounds. And then the beat comes back, with all the impact you’d hope for, the sound of a party catching its second wind.
Twice now has Kaytranada demonstrated the vision required to carry a long-player, working subtle structures into his songs that allow him to keep the momentum up without losing the feeling that those songs are complete in their own right. Bubba is another set of coherent, well-sequenced set of tracks without any major drop-offs, all the more impressive as the album runs more than 50 minutes. It’s flexible, ever-moving, a dance record that could have come from no one else. It’s an old-fashioned skill, his ability to create albums that function as albums, especially for an artist so rooted in the progressive genres of hip-hop and dance. But it makes sense that Kaytranada is so good at it. Bubba thrives on pacing, sequencing, the placing of details that drive you to listen to all of its songs every time you put it on. Which is to say, building an album like this just requires a more advanced form of rhythm.
