Before Flying Lotus was Flying Lotus – genre-defying musical innovator and founder of influential label Brainfeeder – he was Steven Ellison: an anime-obsessed teenager sketching his favourite Dragon Ball Z characters in the margins of his school books. Now, together with The Boondocks co-director LeSean Thomas and recent Oscar-nominated actor Lakeith Stanfield, the 37-year-old is bringing his lifelong passion to the screen as an executive producer, writer and composer for the new Netflix anime series Yasuke.
“It’s weird, I never thought I’d be on some shit like this ever in my life,” a still bemused-sounding Ellison tells me over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I’ve been a fan of anime for forever, but I never thought the day would come where I’d be part of this world.”
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 