Hip-hop is one of those music styles that often contains geographical markers that lets the listener know whether that artist is from New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London or elsewhere, but listening to Lan’do’s music, you might be a bit stuck as to where to place him. That’s the thing about this rapper and songwriter – he can’t be pinned down. Instead he combines a wealth of international sounds and influences to create his experimental sound that’s key to his new EP, Man Like Me.

His broad approach to making music can partly be put down to Lan’do’s background. He was born in Canada and raised in Jamaica, where the artist’s music-loving family introduced him to so many different disciplines. Whether that was his grandmother’s choir, his mother’s R&B records, or the various genres that make up Jamaica’s rich and diverse music culture. More recently, he’s collaborated with Toronto-based artists to form group No Tourists, which has helped to evolve his personal style further.

As you’ll read in the quote below, Lan’do is very introspective when it comes to writing his tracks and the story behind EP single ’16 Bit’ is no exception to this. This is a hard-hitting track that follows the artist’s stream-of-consciousness over an icy production and defiant beatwork, neither of which are a challenge to Lando’s dominating rap flow.

You can listen to ’16 Bit’ and the rest of the Man Like Me EP below.

“The pandemic had just started and I was crashing at my homies universes place, he produced the track. With all the free time we suddenly had we just started cooking up tracks and this was the best one to come out of the sessions. It felt like the words just flowed out of my head, and every line was automatic. Despite all that happened during the lockdown, I’m glad for all the time I was given to explore more unconventional approaches to what I usually used and this song is the culmination of all of that.”

Follow Lan’do on Instagram.