NIGO‘s already got a busy 2022 ahead of him. Alongside his debut KENZO collection, ongoing Human Made projects, and various creative endeavors, the Japanese designer is returning to music with I KNOW NIGO, his first new album in nearly 20 years.
Released by Victor Victor — founder Steven Victor is a longtime NIGO devotee — I KNOW NIGO is stacked with features befitting its colloquial title.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXutis-vW4O/
Unsurprisingly, Pharrell, NIGO’s BFF, is on the record, accompanied by A$AP Rocky, Kid Cudi, Tyler, the Creator, Pusha T, and the Teriyaki Boyz, the formerly defunct Japanese hip-hop collective that NIGO founded and produced in the mid-’00s.
https://youtu.be/iuJDhFRDx9M
NIGO’s music career is nearly as storied as his streetwear legacy. The 50-year-old got his start DJing alongside his mentor, Hiroshi Fujiwara, in the ’90s, introducing Japanese youth culture to Western underground music.
In fact, NIGO’s first proper credit was on the BAPE vs. Mo’Wax series masterminded by UNKLE co-founder and streetwear legend James Lavelle.
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Throughout the late ’90s and early ’00s, NIGO continued to issue singles and remixes.
His final, proper recorded work appeared on two compilations: Nigo (B)ape Sounds and Oyasumi Mode For Beautiful Life, released in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
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However, NIGO continued producing music for years to come, curating compilations and producing music for the Teriyaki Boyz and BILLIE IDLE, a punkish idol group that NIGO founded and managed until they broke up in 2019.
https://youtu.be/MEfcDw2mnLI
NIGO first teased his new record, I KNOW NIGO, in a now-deleted Instagram post from February 2021. Wearing a custom Victor Victor varsity jacket, NIGO was photographed in front of a mixing board and teased that his new album was “coming soon.”
His new record will be published by Victor Victor and Universal Music Group, which announced that it had signed NIGO around the time that he first teased the album.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLaDkxdplMM/
Despite the publicity and teasers, NIGO hasn’t offered a hint at what we can expect I KNOW NIGO to actually sound like. Given his past work, it’d seem likely that NIGO would again channel a trip-hoppy, classic hip-hop sound.
But that was nearly twenty years ago, remember. Plus, seeing Ed Banger and other producers in the studio with NIGO makes me think that I KNOW NIGO will sound much more contemporary.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXtvHeRL3UF/
