Montreal DJ and beatmaker Tommy Kruise has dropped a free mixtape online called Fête Foreign. Despite that title, the EP is the kind of thing destined for the afterparty. Kruise has a knack for making his beats pretty slow or mid-tempo, so if you’re looking for something to party hard to, you may wanna look elsewhere. Still, you’ll wind up liking this if you wanna hear trancey hip-hop (“Rhea”) or the tubular bells of “Calm”. Bolstered by a bevy of rappers, this release alternates between instrumental tracks and those with rhymes on top of them. Truthfully, the instrumental tracks are the ones that seem to work best, as while the rappers featured here (including JME, Levii Ru$$ell, and Earl Swavey) are definitely fluent on the mic, you’ll best appreciate this when you’re just concentrating on the music and the beats.
The reason is that the album has its share of sexist lyrics, with regular usage of the word like “bitches”. Given what has been happening in Canada lately with former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi at the time of writing this review, my tolerance for this sort of thing has gone down a few pegs.
Still, if you can overlook that aspect (and, alas, I suppose that many in the global hip-hop community will), this is still a beguiling and intriguing digital download. Plus, the fact that this is free and circulating out there on the Interwebs is a plus, and a savvy marketing move that will probably enhance Kruise and company’s brands. This DJ does have his share of street cred: he has been featured in Vice Magazine, has started his own show Quebec Is Perfect, and has played high profile events like SXSW, NXNE, Boiler Room Montreal and New York. He has additionally shared the stage with the A$AP Mob, Migos, Juicy J and Riff Raff, among others. Kruise’s cred as a star in the Canadian hip-hop scene is continuing to rise, especially since dropping his first release Memphis Confidential Vol.1 in 2012. Fête Foreign feels original and you have to admit that unless you’ve got a nose stuck in Canadian hip-hop, you don’t hear an awful lot about artists of this nature coming from Quebec. So, basically, since it’s free and online, you don’t have much to lose by streaming or downloading this, sexism be damned, and one hopes that more is to come along these lines — at least, musically.