- Montreal party Turbo Crunk, along with LuckyMe in Scotland, was one of the key forces behind a particularly formative movement in contemporary dance music. Founded by Jacques Greene (then known as Hovatron), Lunice, Seb Diamond, Andrew Gordon (AKA Ango) and Rob Squire (then known as Sixtoo, or his collaborative project Megasoid), it ran from 2006 through 2011, booking guests like Machinedrum, Hudson Mohawke and Flying Lotus. Their mission was simple but effective: to incorporate hip-hop into dance music.
Once Turbo Crunk ended, everyone went their separate ways. Lunice shot to fame as half of TNGHT with Hudson Mohawke. Jacques Greene moved to New York, and away from the hip-hop sound. Gordon made R&B and Squire went to Vancouver, reinventing himself first as Prison Garde, and then again as 247esp in Toronto. A few of them are bona fide stars, the others beloved locals. And their music has evolved considerably beyond the original Turbo Crunk sound. That made the prospect of this year's reunion, held during Red Bull Music Academy's Montreal session, all the more enticing. The residents alone would have made for a star-studded party.
For Saturday's extravaganza, Turbo Crunk also booked Machinedrum, Suicideyear, Jubilee, Clams Casino and LuckyMe's Eclair Fifi, among others. The event went down at Little Italy's Espace Reunion, a large two-room warehouse decked out with blue and orange lighting and, in the smaller room, plenty of foliage that gave it an almost cozy atmosphere. The party opened with one of the night's best sets, a two-hour back-to-back from Ango and 247esp that sounded like something right out of 2009: smooth R&B instrumentals, screwed edits, classic rap a capellas. It was a portal into a past era.
From there, things became a little confused. Suicideyear followed with a solid set that felt just a little too raucous, before Jacques Greene smoothed out some of the edges with a set that made him sound like an elder statesmen of the style, balancing his own svelte beats with killer rap tracks. As he DJ'ed, Lunice whipped up the crowd with his usual dance moves and on-the-mic hyping. Machinedrum played mostly new material, while later, Eclair Fifi went through a string of killer Turbo Crunk-era rap and R&B tracks, like The-Dream's "Rockin' That Shit" and Drake's "Best I Ever Had."
In the side room, Jubilee provided the night's other major highlight with a thunderous set of electro, Miami bass and—of course—Drake. She drew the most ecstatic dancers I saw all evening. Dre Skull followed with an equally ebullient dancehall set, focusing on the bright, singsongy sounds of his Mixpak label. But after spending two hours in that room, I felt like I was at a different party. Going back to the main room to hear older rap and R&B tracks felt a little disorienting.
At times, the party felt torn between a family reunion and some kind of nostalgic reenactment, but the push-and-pull was part of the fun. At no point was the evening predictable. And if some things felt odd—like Clams Casino's out-of-place set of his own tunes—then that was just part of the experience. In its own way, the all-over-the-place, mixed-bag lineup captured the spirit of Turbo Crunk, which, at its height, was a place for reckless experimentation. Even if none of the artists are scrappy young upstarts anymore, that same youthful energy was still palpable from the DJ booth to the dance floor.
Photo credit /
Karel Chladek for Red Bull Content Pool
