Haitian Canadian rapper Lou Phelps built the foundations of his career on hunger. An intense yearning to be known, seen and felt through witty metaphors and intricate sounds. Luckily, he was already halfway there by being blood brothers with superstar DJ and producer Kaytranada who was able to take him under his wing, but also help catapult him into the spaces he needed to be in to fly with his already established lyricism.
“Da Lou Is Back” Phelps insists in the opener of his latest EP TOP Z. As he intertwines his nonchalant rap style on top of fluid sonics, Lou Phelps flows like an oil slick across a variety of beats, as has done since the 2010s. His passion for the pen began very early in his childhood, drawing inspiration from videotapes he had of popular rappers at the time. “I wanted to be a rapper since the age of 6 years old and I was watching rappers like 50 Cent or watching videotapes back then of hip-hop music videos because we didn't have BET in Canada. So, all we could watch were videotapes that my sisters recorded from Haiti.” Lou mentions on video call. When asked about his favourites, he recites the classics from his generation and those reminiscent of the Caribbean culture such as Bob Marley that he enjoyed listening to with his siblings from as early as 4 years old, before transitioning to rap legends like Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes to name a few. “You know, all that New York, sounding stuff. The East Coast stuff. And then, starting high school, I started getting into the more popular type of hip-hop, like Soulja Boy and just anyone who was popular at the time.” But his exploration of the genre didn’t stop there. Like a moth to a flame, he started to get into the gritty underground side of hip-hop and discovered artists like MF DOOM and Charles Hamilton.
Considering his brother’s deep interest in music from the jump too, Lou and Kay became curators for the sounds their friends at school listened to alongside their cousin as they broadened their taste, becoming outcasts simultaneously as those kids who listened to the ‘weird’ stuff, “Nobody liked what we liked. It was too underground. It was too conscious, you know, the type of music we would listen to.” leading the brothers to eventually delve into their own inspired ways of experimentation with The Celestics.
Potentially akin to ‘The Neptunes’ of wanting to be a similar kind of producer/rapper powerhouse, Massively Massive, released in 2011 was a body of work inspired by the underground New York rap scene and more so, the Madvillainy album created by Madlib and MF DOOM as the supergroup Madvillain. Named Louie P and Kaytradamus at the time, Lou mentions, “I just wanted to rap over dope beats. I kinda knew he [Kaytranada] was going to be a high-profile producer… I was like, man, your beats are just so dope. Let me rap over them.” Fuelled with a craving to be one of the biggest anglophone rappers in Montreal, Phelps quickly wanted to be known across the country. His ambition eventually led to him collaborating with Madlib some years later on the track ‘The Sound Of Money’ and opening up for his tour. “It was a dream come true,” he reminisces. “I think it was mainly meeting him that shook me like, this is actually real.” And basking in that childlike awe by spending time with a visionary made Lou realise and draw from Madlib’s mannerisms the subtle art of being laid-back, just like his rap style; a gentle reminder to savour always life’s moments, much like the jazz that these producers would sample – improvised, unhurried and full of surprises.
The Celestics second project Supreme Laziness dropped in 2014, with a more profound edge and flare from both Kaytranada and Lou Phelps that showcased a more mature palette in production and colourful rhymes and verses. “It was like if I took a canvas and just started aggressively throwing paint at it.” Phelps explains. From being inspired by Odd Future at the time, he joined his own collective of creatives through an event called Art Beat Montreal where a group of producers would congregate and play each other their best beats through a speaker. Lou Phelps comments “It was a safe space for rappers… it was just a collective of homies that listened to the same type of music.” From spending more time with these other producers, it became a movement that led to them opening up for Slum Village. Montreal at the time had a lot more collectives popping up and following suit, but more in the French scene. Lou speaks on his early days with a sense of cherishment, but also from a standpoint of growth. Another Celestics project may or may not come one day but would instead be credited as the duo of Lou Phelps and Kaytranada.
When it comes to Lou Phelps’s solo projects, his most recent release TOP Z adds more maturity to his musical pathway. With the name given by his cousin who looks up to Phelps, he is also featured on the record ‘Check Check’ as The Hottest Z, as Phelps wanted his cousin to take rap more seriously since already being a heavily creative person. Also, they already collaborated on his 2023 track ‘Jungle’. However, TOP Z only comes to us as a taster of what Lou Phelps can really do. “The next project is definitely where my full potential is revealed,” he states. “The next project has been done for like, two years almost but I felt like I needed to show a bit more versatility.”
As a Haitian Canadian, it can sometimes be hard to find representation in media. So, to counteract this, Lou Phelps takes pride in showcasing his Haitian identity by using his tri-lingual capabilities within his music. Rapping in English, French and Creole through his projects, he already connects with his audiences with the name of the project, as the ‘Z’ stands for ‘zoe’, a word Americans and Haitians use to identify other Haitians. Beginning to tap into his roots more explicitly, he did once used to shy away from his heritage as he would hold rapping in French at arm’s length. “Mach-Hommy was definitely one of those guys that kind of knocked that sense into me.” He says. “We were working on a song, and he forced me to rap in French. He was like ‘give me a whole a full French verse’ and oddly, this is where I found a nice pocket. I thought, maybe I got to switch it up and mix in a bit of French or creole into my raps.” And with international artists like Bad Bunny now dominating the charts, or Mach-Hommy’s creole verses eagerly being translated by his cult fanbase, there really isn’t any excuse to keep rapping in English all the time anyway.
But personality is one of the biggest things that Lou Phelps wants to show us about himself, as well as his attention to detail with his aesthetics. “Mostly, I wanted people to focus on my hair because I love braiding my hair in different patterns” as referenced to the TOP Z artwork or 2020 project EXTRA EXTRA!, which he spent eight hours getting done to have the word plaited in. His super slick old “Busta Rhymes”-style aesthetic for TOP Z may be the era he wants to present himself now, but who knows what his next endeavour has in store for us, when he allows us to peek a little more into his personality and gives us more than we've bargained for once again.
Listen to Lou Phelps's latest album TOP Z here.
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