13 September | h 11:30 pm
La Pelanda – Outside area
dj set
Kiddy Smile was raised in a housing project in Rambouillet (Yvelines) to the southwest of Paris. In Paris he took dancing lessons and discovered Sylvester and Grace Jones – who, he says, shaped his personality. Before beginning his musical career, Kiddy Smile was a fashion stylist (a love passed on to him by his mother). Among his influences, he cites African-American genres such as gospel and hip-hop, 90s Chicago and Detroit music, the voguing movement and the New York house ballroom scene. In a 2015 interview, he explained that “Voguing is above all ballroom-culture dance, a space for freedom where you can be yourself, where outcasts can find a place.”
Through his events, dances, music and videos, Kiddy embodies that culture where his skin color, love of fashion and homosexuality are fully embraced. His talent and extravagant nature brought him into the public eye and he became known as the ‘French Prince of Voguing’.
Kiddy Smile will be releasing his first album, One Trick Pony, on August 31, 2018. It explores more intimate, personal subjects such as unrequited love, paternal desertion and acceptance of one’s body. The artist also plays in the new movie directed by Gaspare Noé, Climax, which won the Art Cinema Award and critical acclaim at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2018. (Directors’ Fortnight). The first single from the album, Dickmatized, is on the original soundtrack of the movie.
“I define myself as a house-music artist. Queer is limiting. My music reflects my everyday life. I talk about me and being black and gay. My songs are about love. They’re not political, but my work is.”
