Canadian Rap Newcomer bronclair Weaves "Pride and Prejudice" and Chess Into Love Songs
From Sally Rooney novels to chess terminology, bronclair channels everyday emotional unease into melodic rap. The FADER's interview series "The Opener" captures this rising star's creative logic and life details.
A song that references both a novel and a chess tactic at the same time — that's basically how bronclair writes music. His single "Intermezzo" opens with the line "Reflect on what you've been sold, don't stutter," and the title draws from Sally Rooney's novel of the same name while also borrowing a chess term — an intermezzo being an unexpected move that disrupts an opponent's tactical rhythm. In The FADER's Q&A series "The Opener," bronclair explains that this maps perfectly onto himself: often spontaneous to the point of being hard to read, but things always work out in the end, upending everyone else's expectations along the way.
bronclair is a Canadian artist who's gained attention in recent years for his intensely melodic, emotionally raw rap work. In 2025, he released the EP "the crow" with producer 19thou (who's worked with OsamaSon and Drxop), alongside a project with lakepine, a frequent collaborator of Feng's, spanning styles from jerk beats to ambient production. He's also collaborated with Lucy Bedroque and xaviersobased, but it's often when he's alone on a beat from Rabi or Liv that his own voice comes through most clearly.
His frame of reference is all over the place: the first album he ever bought was the "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" movie soundtrack, purchased on iTunes at age ten — the reason being he'd had a dream about the movie before seeing it, and then experienced intense deja vu once he actually watched it. The movie he's most recently rewatched is the 2005 version of "Pride and Prejudice," and he loves the slow-burn love story between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, quietly admiring each other from afar. As for a daily accessory, he wears a replica of the crown necklace worn by Kingdom Hearts protagonist Sora — even though it's hidden under his clothes and no one can see it, he wears it year-round as a reminder of the good memories the series gave him. The best thing he's ever bought for under $100 is the game "Deltarune," which he put off buying for a long time — a diehard "Undertale" fan, he refused to start until he could play multiple chapters at once.
On his creative process, bronclair says the best advice he's ever gotten essentially boils down to "follow your gut": if a song is going to drop, it's because he feels some intense emotion telling him it needs to come out — he describes himself as sometimes just being a vessel for the music. On the flip side, any advice telling him to make music on the industry's standard timeline doesn't work for him at all, especially when the person giving that advice never actually did it that way themselves.
Asked about the best concert he's ever seen, he immediately brings up PinkPantheress's Halloween show in Chicago last year, describing her choreography, style, and the sheer care put into the entire performance as top-tier, and says other artists should take notes from her show. As for touring himself, he says the idea is both exciting and daunting, but as long as he can leave fans with good memories, it's worth every bit of exhaustion.
