Lunice Shares His Success Story in Montreal and Sees The World’s Creative Potential
Photos by Vivien Gaumand
Lunice Greets His Fans With Eagerness During Piknic Électronik and Saintwood’s Last Friday Festival Date.
The Montreal musician finds me waiting for our interview behind the main stage, he approaches with a huge smile as if he already knows his answers. With a quick handshake and informal introduction, he runs away briefly leaving me with his crew.
Lunice brings me, CJ Flemings, and a few others down to the river side on the island to smoke and speak about Montreal’s culture and his experience here.
The energy level Lunice exhibits at every moment and in every action, before or after his shows, is undeniable. The talented producer and creative beat-looper knows how to keep a conversation flowing, check out our discussion below.
Canadanightlife: To start off, what do you get most excited for when you play in Montreal?
Lunice: I got most excited to hear the opening acts from the beginning lineup to right before I get on. That’s one of the best things I can do, is to be inspired by the opener.
Lunice: All my life that’s what I’ve always been and I put in everything I could in what I do. It started to develop to the point where I can headline my own shows. I always go see who the opening performer is to see where they’re at in their stage, what they’re up to, and how they can grow.
CNL: Can you say a highlight from earlier on?
Lunice: Well I came here by the time Ryan Playground came on because I always wanted to see her play. It was such a good set!
Lunice: Next was LittleBabyAngel who just got signed on the same label I’m on, LuckyMe Recordings. I can’t wait to see the future stuff he’s going to work on!
CNL: Is this your first Piknic Électronik performance?
Lunice: It hasn’t been my first Piknic Électronik, but it’s been a while since I played the last one. It was in 2009 actually and I’ve stayed in touch ever since. I played Igloofest the next year and the year after that, but then I stopped for a few years. I hope to play again soon!
Lunice: Piknic Électronik and Igloofest, which are organized by the same people, are the best put-together festivals. In terms of honesty, soul, what it is, the motive behind both events. I support anything where the motive is where I agree on. Their motive is about really pushing new music and new cultures.
CNL: Your surprise performance at Fools Gold Homecoming this summer was amazing. Best memory from that weekend during Mural festival?
Lunice: Watching Goldlink was the best part, I had never seen him before. He’s a great artist and sounds amazing live as well! That is so key for a lot of performers in general, not just rappers. Him as a performer is on point, I hear him clearly, he’s on every que and it works.
Lunice: I don’t even have to explain, it’s A-Trak! Since I was a kid in high-school I was looking up to him. He was ahead of the game in scratching, up tell now it’s amazing to see how he evolved over time. How he went through the years as an artist, company, and name.
CNL: What do you think makes this city’s culture stick out in comparison to other cities in Canada?
Lunice: What makes Montreal culturally different to the rest of Canada is purely the French language. They preserve the language and how it’s spoken, but also the culture within it. Politically there’s a lot of conflict, but in terms of the bigger picture, the way we are today is because of the French language.
Lunice: I’m grateful in the sense that we have this French language and it keeps us closer to a European tradition. It goes through everything, it goes into life, so we subconsciously think about that Europe culture and it makes us different.
Lunice: We’re the only city I know that has an old version of our city, the Old Montreal. It’s everything to me! That’s why I have a studio there because there is unlimited inspiration in it. I would go to what used to be the centre and just think of how it used to be. There is so much history, it’s that thick! The underlying French culture in the city ties everything together.
CNL: How has Montreal helped shape your creative personality?
Lunice: Montreal is a mix of everything! It’s whatever we find on the Internet or on any modern platform. It becomes a nice field where everybody can experiment to the point of not feeling like they have to part of anything. It becomes a free energy kind of thing for creativity in Montreal.
Lunice: That is what makes me different when I go out to play on tour. I’m literally representing what I feel Montreal gives me. Yet there is no way you can say you represent Montreal because of how diverse it is!
Lunice: That’s what’s fucking crazy, what you can maybe say is you represent what Montreal gave to you culturally. You can be from out of town, come to Montreal, learn something, and go back to your city to share it.
CNL: That’s a really humbling way to appreciate how Montreal can shape you.
Lunice: Oh yeah! I take full attention to how much Montreal can inspire me. It’s definitely not a repping my city thing, it’s bigger than that, it’s where this is going. Montreal is still young culturally compared to other big cities. We are the generation to put out what’s going to be next and I love that.
Lunice: You can’t do that if you’re out in L.A because its been happening, you can’t do that out in London because its already happened. So if you’re out here it’s on a clean palette. You can start something that you fully believe in, this is the real dream in Montreal.
CNL: Do you think all people are possible of creative intuition and if so, what are other ways we can encourage it?
Lunice: Wow! That’s crazy you ask me that question. That is something I have always been researching on and thinking about all my life. Yes, I believe strongly that every single human being on this Earth has the intuition to be creative.
Lunice: All it takes is the will to surrender; surrender what you know, surrender what you are able to do so you can learn more. Certain people will learn specific things to the extent that they think it is their belief completely. They will continue to believe it as so until whatever occurs.
Lunice: To be a real creator you need to know how to surrender yourself to anything, to good feedback, bad feedback, suggestions, anything. That is actually what I want to push eventually through whatever I’m doing creatively. My ultimate goal in life is to show people their own creativity.
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