After a few seconds, the “party” was in the square, everyone was dancing, jumping and singing the words of the pieces of the two performers that they knew by heart. Every artist’s dream audience since no one went there to check their emails or tell their neighbor about their day. Everyone was there for the music, and only for the music.
The two stars of the evening were visibly touched by the reception from their audience, never tiring of repeating how “hot” it was and successfully asking the spectators to give them “flashes”, c that is, to greet them by turning on the flashlight on their cell phone. Many fans must have run out of batteries late in the evening!
Kevin “Souldia” Saint-Laurent and Jayson “Lost” Elombo had an obvious bond on stage, as on their album released three weeks ago without notice. Even very recent ones, titles like Pressure, Skyscrapers, Bus Shelters, On Floor Or Cohiba had already been well assimilated by the public. With Rage to live, taken from the album Dixque d’Artlaunched by Souldia in 2021, the two acolytes reminded us that their collaboration dates back a few years already.
Souldia and Lost had an obvious bond on stage as well as on their album. (Jocelyn Riendeau/Le Soleil)
Surprises
Accompanied by a guitarist, a drummer and two DJs in an ultra-professional setting, the two rappers had obviously reserved a few surprises for this special occasion, not only by also performing some of their album hits previous ones, for example I Love U So Much or the training Valentina for Souldia and Quibble for Lost, but also with special guests.
Die-On, accomplice of Souldia and the late Infrak within the trio Facekché, went to join his old friend on stage to perform the duet Once upon a timetaken from the album Bad Angel. Later, it was Lost which indicated that he had driven more than two hours for this show, but that he had not made the trip alone before presenting his bandmates from the group 5Sang14 Random, White-B, Gaza and MB who came on stage at the end of the show, all performing his anthem with Souldia The Happiness of Otherswhich Lost did not hesitate to qualify as one of the biggest rap classics in Quebec.
It wasn’t over yet though as the crowd was treated to their encore, Lost returning with Sixth Sense as the crowd shouted “Chiki Chang!” and “Biggie Bang!” at his request. Souldia then brought down the curtain with Diablotaken from his album Unconventional launched last year.
Jay Jay
Before the arrival on stage of Souldia and Lost, we were also impressed by the energy and artistic maturity of Jay Baraka Malcom Amuli, alias Jay Jay, who had been delegated to launch the evening.
In a half-hour performance, the 15-year-old rapper from Limoilou performed several tracks from the albums and mini-albums he has released since he was 12. Arrived on stage with the mask of Jason Voorhees from the horror film series Friday 13Jay Jay also benefited from this impeccable audience who also knew his pieces by heart and sang them with him.
Police surveillance
Furthermore, it should also be noted that we didn’t only find hip-hop fans on Friday at the Imperial. The evening took place partly under police surveillance with at least six Quebec City police officers identified inside the performance hall, something unheard of in Quebec for the author of these lines.
Even the members of the Imperial security service, who were in sufficient numbers for the album launch of the capital’s most popular rapper, could not explain the situation and said they were surprised by this deployment. With a keen eye, rapper Jay Jay did not fail to notice the presence of the police, encouraging the crowd to give the finger to those whom his DJ described as shady individuals.
Some identified Quebec City police officers were seen inside the room during the show. (Ian Bussieres)
Probably everyone present on Friday knew that both Souldia and Lost have been in trouble with the law in the past and have even been to prison. The two rappers have never hidden it, but they are far from being the only artists to have a few bad things in their past and yet we do not see police officers inside during Éric Lapointe’s shows or Mötley Crüe!
Moreover, for several years, it is the Félixes and the gold records that Souldia has been collecting, not the criminal charges. As for the public who was present at the Imperial on Friday evening, there was nothing problematic since they were there to hear excellent hip-hop and not to plot to commit some theft.
Souldia and Lost will launch their album in Montreal Robot Portrait on Saturday June 8 at Club Soda.
