Canadian producer Kaytranada may have seen his profile rise in the realm of electronic music recently, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost touch with his roots, which included as much hip-hop and R&B as they have house and other electronic forms. On his latest single release, “Dysfunctional,” he taps once again into that urban wellspring of sounds to connect them with the more metropolitan dance sequences that have earned him spots at some of the world’s biggest festivals, plugging the Nigerian-American R&B duo VanJess into his silky funk to create a smooth dance floor burner that will likely appeal to fans of both genres.
Kaytranada is a few years removed from his well-received 2016 debut album, 99.9%, for which he won the prestigious Polaris Music Prize, but he’s kept up a steady stream of new music since then, which includes a remix of jazz musician Robert Glasper’s ArtScience EP in 2018, his own Nothin’ Like U/Chances chances EP later that same year, and a joint EP with Compton rapper Buddy in 2017 called Ocean & Montana. He also contributed half of the production to 22-year-old rapper Bishop Nehru’s 2018 album, Elevators: Acts I&II alongside MF Doom.
Kay is set to appear at a number of music festivals this year, including Jay-Z’s Made In America Festival, Pharrell Williams’ Something In The Water Festival, Barcelona’s Sónar Festival, and FORM Arcosanti in Arizona.
