Biography
Elijah Nang (also known as Nang Food) is a British instrumental hip-hop artist from London. In his own words he "composes novels with music."
Elijah Nang is a storyteller. With a brush of boom-bap he depicts landscapes and narrates travels, mostly across Japan’s countryside and through its teeming cities. Nang loves anime and maintains an obsessive enthusiasm for the Land of the Rising Sun that shines with brilliance in his beats. A worldly fellow, Nang hails from London, has Nigerian heritage, attended high-school in Missouri (if Facebook can be trusted), and psychologically occupies Japan. He's been producing since 2006. He’s made music for rappers and used to rap himself, but now he's all about the instrumentals. This decade plus of experience in the breaks is reflected in the consistently high quality of his production. Nothing Nang produces is substandard. His beats could be construed as overly formulaic, as certain patterns are repeated across his catalog. The formula’s ingredients, however, are so delicious and fulfilling.
Others before him have spliced Western hip-hop with Eastern anime, most notably Nujabes, to whom Nang pays tribute with multiple songs including “Yuki Pt.II 降雪” and “Sunburst 太陽”. Nang picked up where the others left off, and continues to elevate the Eastern beats aesthetic to transcendent heights. Nang’s sonic journeys correspond to his actual travels. He communicates his experiences through songs like “Shibuya Lights 渋谷” in which rippling percussion and piano samples create a glistening night skyline, or “Kyoto Evening ” in which Koto samples and a jostling low-pass filter depict a city’s bustling but reserved nightlife. The Koto is a traditional Japanese string instrument and its appears across Nang’s body of work, including a delightfully subtle introduction at the end of “Bonsai 盆栽”. Sampling this native instrument is one way by which Nang evokes the East, similar to hand drums conjuring images of the Indian subcontinent, or certain orchestral melodies evoking the Balkans.
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