Kaytranada essential tracks start with a simple fact: the Montreal producer changed how rap and R and B records move, and he did it from Canada. This is a catalogue deep dive, not new release news. Louis Kevin Celestin, born in Port-au-Prince and raised in Montreal, built the catalogue below across three studio albums, 99.9% in 2016, Bubba in 2019 and Timeless in 2024, plus a run of singles that travelled further than most albums do.
For readers searching canadian hip hop’s production side, this is the essential route through it: ten tracks, in the order a new listener should hear them.
Join The iimiTV Letter
Enter your email and we will send you a confirmation link. Click it and your first edition lands on Friday.
Kaytranada essential tracks, the 99.9% foundation
Glowed Up, featuring Anderson .Paak (2016). The 99.9% centrepiece and the collaboration that announced the pairing’s chemistry, two artists who would keep finding each other for a decade. Lite Spots (2016) is the album’s purest dancefloor record, built on a Brazilian sample flip that shows where the Montreal bounce comes from. Got It Good, featuring Craig David (2016) proved the sound could carry a UK garage voice without bending. You’re The One, featuring Syd (2016) became the catalogue’s signature slow burner, the track that turned a producer’s album into a singers’ destination.
The Bubba peak and the Grammy pair
10%, featuring Kali Uchis (2019), is the hinge of the whole catalogue. Bubba won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album, and 10% itself won Best Dance Recording, making Kaytranada the first Black artist and the first Canadian to win that category. The Worst In Me, featuring Tinashe (2019), is Bubba’s after hours counterpart, and Freefall, featuring Durand Bernarr (2019), is the deep cut DJs kept longest. Together the three explain why Bubba, released December 2019, set the template every producer album since has been measured against.
The singles run and Timeless
Intimidated, featuring H.E.R. (2021), carried the sound into the next decade as a standalone single, all restraint and swing. Twin Flame, with Anderson .Paak (2022), renewed the catalogue’s defining partnership six years after Glowed Up. The route closes with Timeless, his third studio album, released in June 2024, a double sided record that widened the guest list again and confirmed the run was a career, not a moment. Canadian hip hop has produced bigger voices, but no producer from this country has bent more records toward his own rhythm. These ten tracks are where that argument starts.
