The excessive Lary Kidd is back — more eloquent, more trash and more absurd than ever on his third solo album, entitled (hold tight) Napoleon’s white horse. Founding member of Loud Lary Ajust, who will kick off the Montreal Francos with two concerts at Les Foufounes Électriques, revisits his turbulent twenties with an album tinged with self-deprecation and inspired by the wrestler Mad Dog Vachon, the poet Michèle Lalonde and veteran New York rapper Ghostface Killah.
Napoleon’s white horse, Marengo, was gray, in fact, at least as painted in 1803 by Antoine-Jean Gros, a reproduction of whose canvas illustrates the cover of Lary Kidd’s album.
On the other hand, the covers of singles from the album — the powerful Speak White, Do you know my name, Little pig (with Fléau Dicaprio) and Moishes Riopelle — were created from childhood photos of the rapper. “We agree, photos of children on album covers have become a sort of rap code,” recalls Lary Kidd first, quoting Lil Wayne and his famous Tha Carter III (2008) and Tha Carter IV (2011). History will remember even better the cover of Nas’ classic (Illmatic1994) and Ready to Die (1994) from The Notorious B.I.G. “Kendrick [Lamar] also did it, continues Lary. I don’t know, it seems like I was there: embracing something so classically rap. »
Here we are, yes, almost fifteen years after the founding of the famous trio Loud Lary Ajust (LLA), which is also returning to the festival route this summer, less to highlight the 10e anniversary of the release of his second album, Blue Volvo, only to celebrate the unwavering friendship between three musicians who have never left each other before. Ajust has produced his new album. Loud notably put his rhymes on the song Yes sirrecreating this chemistry that made LLA so successful, these two voices so complementary, the calmer and more in control of Loud opposing the rough, rebellious tone of Lary.
However, somewhere through the ten songs of the album (the eleventh, a collaboration with the French rapper Benjamin Epps entitled What are you talking about, will be considered a bonus song), it also means that it is there. Lary Kidd raps with astonishing restraint, as if he no longer needed to kick in to capture our attention. The text is delivered without the urgency that transpired from Controlhis first album released in 2017, the very typical musical direction – icy rhythms, horror cinema synths, up to the synthpop ballad sample of So Cold — is enough to make the atmosphere anxiety-provoking (notably by recycling old threats made on TV by Mad Dog Vachon addressing his opponents) without the rapper having to add a layer.
“I appreciate you saying that,” Lary responds. That was the goal, precisely, “and in addition, I had recorded a few other songs that were more intense, serious, more conscious, which we ultimately didn’t keep on the album. The album has this atmosphere, very flowing, free — I don’t know if you noticed, but it starts with a very punched [Tu connais mon nom] and it relaxes to end with a melancholic ballad”, So Cold.
In the text, on the other hand, Lary Kidd loses his temper. “This album is a big rap delirium,” he sums up, smiling from ear to ear. It’s technical in terms of delivery, it’s sharp, but the texts… Yeah, it’s still hell. »
Oust! the thoughts of modern philosophers cited on his previous albums (a fan of Cioran, he raps on The ghosts of SOCAN : “I quote obscure authors / They invite me to Radio-Can”). On this new album, the MC has more deliriums of hard drugs, served with the cynicism that we know him, and a touch of provocation, as evidenced by the first extract SpeakWhite.
It is indeed the voice of its author, Michèle Lalonde, that we hear reciting a few stanzas of her famous text, sentences of course taken from the film by Jean-Claude Labrecque and Jean-Pierre Masse, The night of poetry 27 March 1970. But here it is, Lary Kidd has an idea in mind, preferring to speak as white as powder: “First, cook it up slowly / Pack it in Rio Tinto / Pack it up and pile it / In a Renaud Twingo”. Lary Kidd finds a lexical field in cocaine as Wu Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah did with his classic Fishscale (2006), an album on which treasures of imagination are deployed to evoke the transformation of the coca leaf, its trade and the different ways of using it.
“This kind of story supports the boasting” which is part of the hip-hop imagination, believes the MC. “These texts are me making fun of my own story,” from Speak White precisely, then on The ghosts of SOCAN : “Bro, imagine [si] I had a thousand piastres for every time I said the word “cocaine” / I wouldn’t drive a Volkswagen.”
“Let’s be realistic,” he explains. I am 36 years old. I have a blonde. I have a clothing company [OFFICIEL, fondée en 2016]. I have a dog ! Today I am a little businessman. So if anyone wants to believe that I’m smashing TVs in hotel rooms while snorting MDMA, let them believe it. These songs are me hiding behind a character. » Still partly inspired by an old life, he suggests in Speak White : “All this brick talk / It’s just a narrative / When I was piss poor / I was sick of getting more money”, he raps in this mix of English and French echoing Lalonde’s poem , to whom Lary Kidd claims to pay homage.
“What I’m saying takes me back to a crazy youth,” he sums up. What I’ve been through, where I’m from, who I grew up with, what these guys were doing, mixed with what I observe. But there is no fantasy, no glorification — when I want to denounce something, I do it in a non-literal way, and always with a dose of cynicism. […]. It’s really just a melting pot of what I absorb. »
Images, certainly strong, a little cliché too – like the children’s photos on the covers of single —, interspersed with candid or simply comical testimonies: “I squeeze the fart like a rag / I bleed the label like a pig / I get my straight flush on / Gettin stupid money, call me duffle bag niochon,” raps Lary on Little pig, duo with Fléau Dicaprio, a young MC on the rise on the Montreal scene.
“Fléau is a very good MC who is improving visibly,” illustrates Lary. On stage, he can galvanize a crowd, that’s why he will open for my concerts at the Francos. But he’s also a guy cool who looks a bit like me. How ? He’s a thug, like me, but at the same time very sensitive and intelligent. »