Happy Birthday, Flying Lotus!

Today, Oct. 7, is the birthday of Los Angeles-bred DJ, rapper, producer and filmmaker Steven Ellison, better known to the hip-hop world as Flying Lotus. The experimental FlyLo is now 35.

Ellison was born and raised on the West Coast and got into the music world early, dabbling with production tools from the time he was a teen. The maestro attended both Los Angeles Film School and Academy of Art University, but his biggest introduction into music came around 2006, when he interned at Stones Throw Records and submitted some of his original beats to Adult Swim under the moniker Flying Lotus. FlyLo's beats were accepted by the network and soon, his music was heard all across the late-night, anime-leaning network. The producer independently dropped his debut album, 1983, in 2006 and signed to Warp Records in 2007, dropping his label debut, Reset, the same year.

Flying Lotus is known for mixing sounds and samples from all across the globe. From 1970s Japanese pop to mellow 1990s alt-rock to jazz, a FlyLo hip-hop beat is anything but cookie cutter. Over the years, the producer started his own label, Brainfeeder, has dropped five albums and collaborated with Denzel Curry, Metro Boomin, Anderson .Paak and more. He's also gotten busy in front of the mic under the rap name Captain Murphy.

Last summer, FlyLo released his first self-written, self-scored and self-directed film Kuso, which starred the likes of Zack Fox, George Clinton and Hannibal Buress. The super producer's career had a full circle moment afterwards when he's scored the short anime film, Black Out 2022, a flick directed by anime creator Shinichiro Watanabe. This new animated film is a prequel to the Denis Villeneuve-directed neo-noir sci-fi film Blade Runner 2049, which stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.

Happy Birthday, FlyLo!

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