Growing up in New York where so many rappers, singers, and DJs come from communities that fly their flag on Labor Day, I couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing hip-hop collabs and remixes featuring dancehall royalty like Super Cat, Buju Banton, Bounty Killer, and Shabba Ranks. I’ve always felt that the ability to blend seamlessly with whatever cultural rhythms are personal to the artist to be one of the coolest things about hip-hop and R&B. Enter coupé-décalé, a fast-paced and drum-heavy genre of dance music with roots in the Ivory Coast of the 2000s that’s having a crossover moment. An essential glimpse of the mash-up is Chrystel’s “Bisous,” which is going to be a blast when you’re three or four drinks deep on a Saturday night. Chrystel—who was raised in Salt Lake City and now based in Atlanta but grew up with Ivorian and Congolese sounds playing around her crib—has a pillowy voice with a hummable bounce. Her tone can veer toward algorithmically smooth R&B, but the rapid pitter-patter of Quantum Flush’s groove brings out her swag. Together they’re onto the kind of easy-listening fusion that is a DJ set cheat code, even if the sound could still hit another gear, that, like the music of coupé-décalé’s pioneers, is faster, louder, and more chaotic.
