Kiddy Smile

With a sound fashioned by house music from the 1980s and the bold legacy of ballroom, Paris’ Kiddy Smile is inextricably tied to an agenda of getting people moving. Breaking through as a dancer for everyone from George Michael to LCD Soundsystem, Kiddy soon found a rhythm which was unique to him – delivering searing DJ sets which blended Jersey club, New Orleans bounce, UK grime and glistening ballroom with carefree abandon.

Kiddy is now a key presence within dance music’s queer community and a mascot for ballroom culture in Paris. Most recently, he joined the “We’re Open” campaign by Smirnoff – along with Honey Dijon and Lucy Fizz. The campaign is an opportunity for Kiddy to celebrate the sounds and ideas which exist at the core of the music he plays and help promote inclusivity on dancefloors. As he told The FADER, in reference to ballroom, “Whether you can dance or you can’t dance, whether you have fashion sense or not, whether you’re cute or ugly — there is a category for everybody.”

For his contribution to the Crack Magazine mix series, Kiddy delivers a bone-rattling tour through the various whiplash rhythms that he brings to dancefloors. Bleeping house, speaker-busting Jersey sounds and dress-to-sweat trax which only the most accomplished movers can handle – but everyone should have a go. Turn this one up.