In Montreal, very few English-speaking soul/R&B/hip-hop groups and artists (or none at all except maybe Kaytranada) have reached such a level. A journey started in 2012 by MC Tony $tone, beatmakers Dumix and Rami B, Planet Giza released their first album in 2019 and raised a lot of interest in the underground but … Montreal obviously didn’t listen enough. Planet Giza surprises us here with aplomb and definitely draws us into its orbit with this excellent opus, Ready When You Are. This album reaches the ideal balance between beatmaking, flow and quality vocals, singular arrangements, very cool remarks on the existence, on the intimate relationships, on the behavior of others, on the career which starts, the whole topped with a brilliant humor. There is a real depth in the creative work here, there is also this swag, this flexibility of the best hip-hop / R&B artists, there are references to the best ones who preceded them, we think of the best boom bap of the 90s, with jazzy or Latin inflections, to the most recent of the West Coast such as Kendrick or Tyler the Creator, there is this R&B deeper approach than all the Daniel Ceasar and The Weeknd of the whole Canadian production. It’s no surprise that such quality artists have joined forces with Mick Jenkins (“Think Of Me”), Kaytranada (“Sometimes”), Saba (“WYD”), Femdot (“Northern Playalistic”), among other distinguished featurings. This shows the underground credibility already reached by these artists whose long emergence will soon be a thing of the past. The short list of the Polaris 2023? The first prize ?
