Montreal MC Lary Kidd had more than 60 shows on his 2020 itinerary, but, like so many musicians around the world, his plans were thwarted by the pandemic. So, with his longtime collaborator and former Loud Lary Ajust bandmate Ajust, “We simply decided to make music to pass the time,” Kidd tells Apple Music. The resulting EP, Le poids des livres (translation: the weight of it all), is heavily sample-based. “It’s like a love letter to the rap of the late ’90s, which is the opposite trend of everything that’s being done nowadays,” he says. “It was a pivotal period in rap history, and that’s when I learned the ropes.” Here he talks through each of the EP’s songs. Keys on the Table “It’s very representative of the style I’ve always done: very braggy rap in which I recount part of my past, while at the same time commenting on society and denouncing class inequalities. This one also contains lots of wordplay.” Feu roulant “We’re in the same vibe as we were on the other tracks. I look back over my 10-year career as a rapper. It’s like I’m thanking rap for having always been there for me, even in the darkest moments.” Métro Vendôme “It’s a song made using a guitar sample, one that inspired something a little bit violent. It’s like a little ball of rage that echoes teenage back-alley fights.” Ville des anges “Me and Ajust, we call it our ‘bibitte’ [bug]. When he showed me the beat, I immediately had this image of a guy, a rock star in LA in the ’80s. It’s a criticism of the star system, which I think is a totally artificial world. In the refrain, you can hear a sample of a philosopher saying just how narcissistic people are in life.” De mon âme “It’s the most socially committed track on the EP, or at least the most damning. I take a lot of shots at various social issues. Through the storytelling, I also talk about different things that happened in my life when I was younger.”