Souldia and Lost at Club Soda

Rappers Souldia and Lost offered a generous performance on the Club Soda stage on Saturday, in front of a lively and packed crowd. The duo confirms the enormous potential of collaborative projects, and the extent to which they have the power to breathe a breath of fresh air into a rap industry that is sometimes too homogeneous.

Rainy weekend, Grand Prix weekend (yuck), but a weekend also leaving room for this true love letter addressed to Quebec rap. A letter perhaps not as long and loaded as this event at the Bell Center celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 7ième Ciel label represented, but this launch at Club Soda in Robot portraita collaborative record by Lost and Souldia released by surprise at the beginning of May, was simply THE unmissable event for local rap lovers at the end of spring.

* Photo by Dominic Courchesne.

Flashes, more flashes

Souldia and Lost take the stage around 9 p.m. under a sea of flashes, and begin the evening with Yesterday again, the opening of this project highlighted this evening. The two artists come from the culture of street rap and share a heavy past: everything is relayed in text on the album, which only marinated in the ears of listeners for barely a month. And yet, some members of the public already religiously know the entire lyrics of the ten tracks of Robot portrait.

What luck, nonetheless, to be able to benefit from such fans!

* Photo by Dominic Courchesne.

Robot portrait ventures in all directions: the distressing beat trap of Pressure is particularly well transmitted on stage, Owl is both a little more pop and introspective while Cohiba and its piano production leans slightly towards soul.

If Souldia and Lost move away from the codes of commercial rap, this does not mean that the style of the two artists is the same: Souldia, a native of Quebec, offers a choppy and technical delivery, while Lost, a pure Montrealer, prefers to recite his texts through flows and behavior that are often more nonchalant.

On album, it’s 50/50, but on stage, obviously Souldia stands out. A supercharged attitude as such pleases more.

The magic of collaborative albums brings communities together, and we talk about it. Gazo and Tiakola as well as Zola and KobaLaD recently embarked on the exercise on the other side of the ocean, while the first of the two duet albums by Future and Metro Boomin, released at the start of the year, allowed to Kendrick Lamar to initiate the most major and high-profile event to occur in music in recent years.

* Photo by Dominic Courchesne.

A 32 minute project like Robot portraitit’s not enough to occupy the audience during an entire show: Lost and Souldia, who had already collaborated before, took the opportunity to present songs on stage in featuring from previous albums like Rockstar Or Rage to livetitles that some people in the room still know like the back of their hand.

The two rappers successively occupy the stage to perform solo songs, all with respect, without perceiving a single ounce of misplaced ego. We need it in rap, in fact, a little brotherhood from time to time.

Speaking of fraternity, of this unifying love letter to Quebec rap: none other than Loud walks the stages of Club Soda towards the end of the show, performing Paranoid And Youthful dream in a duet with Lost, then with Souldia, before the collective 5sang14, which includes major names in Montreal rap like White-B, Capitaine Gaza and, in fact, Lost, joins the joyful troupe to close the regular part of the show.

Reminder with Iceberg And Diablo, before saying goodbye for good, after 1h40 of continuous performance. Fans of Souldia and Lost can say that they got their money’s worth, not like fans of a certain Mr. Worldwide who made the trip to Sainte-Hélène Island the same evening…

* Photo by Dominic Courchesne.