* En anglais uniquement
Producer and beatmaker
Napolian was born Ian Evans, growing up in southern Los Angeles and soaking in a great amount of musical influence at a young age. Evans was making beats and working on notable productions before he was even out of his teens, culminating with the release of the Rejoice EP in 2012 on
Daniel Lopatin of
Oneohtrix Point Never's Software label. The EP, a debut for
Napolian, highlighted his cleaner and more funk-inflected take on the post-
Dilla landscape of instrumental hip-hop. Evans' work was noticed by more than a few supporters, and the coming years saw him working on production, mixing, and compositions alongside
A$AP Ferg and
Kelela, and in collaboration with
Joel Ford aka
Airbird. In 2014, Evans completed work on the debut
Napolian full-length,
Incursio, a sample-free collection of instrumental beats and highly compositional instrumental electro-leaning hip-hop. The following year, Evans and
Ford released a collaborative full-length, Mr. Foolish, on the Cascine label. The album's songs ranged from vaporous recollections of '80s synth-funk to ecstatic, rough-cut house tracks. ~ Fred Thomas