Vietnamese-Chinese Canadian Hip-Hop Artist Nilo Blues Shares New Single “Akira Harakiri” ​   

Nilo Blues is a 20-year-old poster child of the post-internet, low-attention-span, what’s-the-wifi-pw Generation Z. Growing up in the Toronto art scene, Blues drew influences from his upbringing as a Vietnamese-Chinese Canadian living within a distorted western society. Often feeling internally lost and never accepted, he experienced the struggles of self-concept and trying to live beyond stereotypes. These adversities have fueled his creative chi as Blues comes out of the starting gate full of bravado, poise, and conviction rarely witnessed from a new artist.

Today Nilo Blues shares his single “Akira Harakiri,” an explosive, neon-lit banger. Audacious and unflinching, the new track has the power to cause havoc to the silencers of a corrupted system. Sonically, the effort leans on roaring trap-laden beats and terse hip-hop rhythms. Blue’s adroit vocals and smooth fluidity convey a sense of fervor all while challenging the status quo of Asian role models within an American culture. “Akira Harakiri” pays homage to the anime and cartoons Blues held close growing up. The song fuses the raw tenacity of ‘Akira’ with the thriving energy of ‘Dragonball Z’ for a powerful combination that leaves listeners craving more.

In his own words, Nilo Blues says of his new single:

“‘Akira Harakiri’ is more of a cinematic approach to the Toronto trap wave that has been cultivated throughout the last decade. I wanted to bring that raw energy and fuse it with the ‘Akira’ (1988) anime universe. It’s crazy because the visuals were coming to me as I was cooking up the song, so it was a pretty wild and unique writing process. I felt that intensity and used it to create this persona while recording my vocals.”

“Akira Harakiri” follows Blues’ 2020 debut single “No Risk Involved” and its accompanied music video directed by angelicamilash. Praised by FADER, COLORS, EARMILK, and more, the track is an intrepid statement on cultural identity and stereotyping of Asian culture. Jarring and personal, “No Risk Involved” sonically blends N*E*R*D-esque guitars with cold trap drums. The song has accumulated 90K+ Spotify streams in its first month of release and landed on New Music Friday (Canada) and Fresh Finds playlists.

Nilo Blues is a multi-hyphenate creative that sings, raps, dances, writes, produces, and acts while drawing inspiration from a wide breadth of source material including Eddie Huang, Bruce Lee, Martin Scorsese, Alexander McQueen, Francis Bacon, and Michael Jackson.