Born Louis Kevin Celestin in Haiti and raised in a suburb of Montréal, Kaytranada was making tracks on FL Studio in his bedroom before getting signed or playing festivals. Coming up through Montréal’s local Piu Piu scene, he started grabbing attention by uploading unofficial SoundCloud flips of 90s R&B tracks—like his breakout remix of Janet Jackson’s “If”—giving club music a completely different entry point.
His style didn’t come from standard dance production guides. Raised on Haitian compas at home and J Dilla’s hip-hop beats in his headphones, he brought those influences directly into electronic music. He took traditional house tempos and intentionally dragged the snares and kicks slightly off-beat. That small shift replaced stiff, computer-grid timing with a swing that felt alive.
His 2016 debut album 99.9% changed what the industry expected from a dance record. By pairing off-center drum loops with heavy sub-bass, he bridged the gap between underground hip-hop beatmakers and mainstage festival crowds, creating a template that worked just as well in headphones as it did on a dancefloor. Seamlessly weaving in guest spots from Anderson .Paak, Syd, and BADBADNOTGOOD, the record showed how naturally dance music could intersect with R&B and hip-hop across a full project.
When Bubba won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album, Kaytranada became the first Black and openly gay artist to take home the award. In doing so, he helped re-center mainstream dance music around the Black and queer communities that originally founded house music in Chicago and Detroit. His career proved to the broader industry that actual groove and swing matter far more than rigid, machine-straight timing.
Jojo P.