Biography
Jeremy Nutzman, recording as Velvet Negroni, crafts intricate, multicolored tracks and austere dreamscapes that merge R&B, rap, rock, and electronic elements into new shapes. Across the 2019 album Neon Brown he threaded unexpected pairings and eerie separations into the material, while the 2023 release Bulli foregrounded the charged immediacy of live creation; in both cases Nutzman consistently reframes familiar idioms through his own lens.
Raised in Minnesota after being adopted as a child into a white evangelical household, Nutzman—who is Black—grew up under a mother who worked as a fundamentalist missionary and required long hours of classical piano practice plus training as a competitive figure skater. Although secular music was banned at home, he slipped out after dark to rehearse guitar with his earliest band. Following his graduation from University of Northwestern, he relocated to Minneapolis and began recording in earnest, first under the hip-hop alias Spyder Baybie Raw Dog and then alongside Hunter Morley in the duo Pony Bwoy, whose hazy R&B approach foreshadowed the direction Nutzman would later pursue alone.
After Pony Bwoy issued two albums and disbanded, Nutzman carried the duo’s inward-facing aesthetic into solo work. In 2016 he adopted the Velvet Negroni name, borrowed from a costly cocktail, and made his initial appearance under that banner later the same year on the Tickle Torture collaboration “Full Court Press.” The August release of his debut mixtape T.C.O.D.—an abbreviation for “the climb of decay”—followed; its hazy, atmospheric tone drew the notice of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who brought Nutzman on tour as an opener throughout 2018. One track from the mixtape, “Waves,” influenced the sonic character of “Feel the Love,” the opening cut on Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s joint project Kids See Ghosts, and secured Nutzman a co-writing credit.
For his proper debut album Nutzman recruited Tickle Torture and Psymun as co-producers; Neon Brown appeared on 4AD in August 2019. That same year he also featured on Bon Iver’s album I, I. In 2020 Nutzman added vocals to “Let Us Rave” from Naeem’s album Startisha, a track later issued as a single in 2022. Velvet Negroni resurfaced in January 2023 with Bulli, a more fractured yet still melodic extension of the genre-blending approach heard on Neon Brown and a record shaped by upheaval in Nutzman’s personal circumstances.
Raised in Minnesota after being adopted as a child into a white evangelical household, Nutzman—who is Black—grew up under a mother who worked as a fundamentalist missionary and required long hours of classical piano practice plus training as a competitive figure skater. Although secular music was banned at home, he slipped out after dark to rehearse guitar with his earliest band. Following his graduation from University of Northwestern, he relocated to Minneapolis and began recording in earnest, first under the hip-hop alias Spyder Baybie Raw Dog and then alongside Hunter Morley in the duo Pony Bwoy, whose hazy R&B approach foreshadowed the direction Nutzman would later pursue alone.
After Pony Bwoy issued two albums and disbanded, Nutzman carried the duo’s inward-facing aesthetic into solo work. In 2016 he adopted the Velvet Negroni name, borrowed from a costly cocktail, and made his initial appearance under that banner later the same year on the Tickle Torture collaboration “Full Court Press.” The August release of his debut mixtape T.C.O.D.—an abbreviation for “the climb of decay”—followed; its hazy, atmospheric tone drew the notice of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who brought Nutzman on tour as an opener throughout 2018. One track from the mixtape, “Waves,” influenced the sonic character of “Feel the Love,” the opening cut on Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s joint project Kids See Ghosts, and secured Nutzman a co-writing credit.
For his proper debut album Nutzman recruited Tickle Torture and Psymun as co-producers; Neon Brown appeared on 4AD in August 2019. That same year he also featured on Bon Iver’s album I, I. In 2020 Nutzman added vocals to “Let Us Rave” from Naeem’s album Startisha, a track later issued as a single in 2022. Velvet Negroni resurfaced in January 2023 with Bulli, a more fractured yet still melodic extension of the genre-blending approach heard on Neon Brown and a record shaped by upheaval in Nutzman’s personal circumstances.
Albums
Singles
