MONTREAL — As pungent pot smoke filled the air in a bunkerlike, dimly lit basement recording studio in Montreal, the Quebec rapper Snail Kid pondered a question befitting these pandemic times: What word rhymes with Purell?

Mulling how to fit the hand sanitizer into his latest rap lyric, he considered the English words “well,” “smell” and “toaster strudel” before toying with the French words “pluriel” and “ruelle.”

Then, Snail Kid, 30, a member of the popular Quebec hip-hop group Dead Obies began to rap:

Le monde ici est cruel

On n’est plus well

(The world here is cruel. We are no longer well.)

“Now everyone is going to be competing to find the best rhyme for ‘quarantine’ or ‘corona,’” mused Snail Kid, whose real name is Gregory Beaudin. Mr. Beaudin grew up speaking the native English of his Jamaican-born father, a reggae singer, as well as the French of his Montreal-born mother, a French teacher.

The bilingual wordplay in the cavernous recording studio reflected how the coronavirus has changed not only how we live, but popular culture. It was also notable for another reason particular to Montreal: The group was rapping in Franglais or “Frenglish,” mixing English and French with artistic abandon that irks some purists.