L'Orange

L'Orange is a North Carolina-born beatmaker with a penchant for sampling early jazz records and vintage radio broadcasts, lending a nostalgic, time-worn quality to his music. After starting his career with a few primarily instrumental solo releases such as 2012′s The Mad Writer, his first full-length rap collaboration was 2013′s The City Under the City, with Stik Figa. Since then, he’s released masterful efforts with Kool Keith (Time? Astonishing!, 2015), Mr. Lif (The Life & Death of Scenery, 2016), and others, as well as solo ventures like 2017′s The Ordinary Man. After releasing two albums with Solemn Brigham as the duo Marlowe, L'Orange worked with Nashville rapper Namir Blade on 2021′s Imaginary Everything, and returned to instrumental beatmaking with The World Is Still Chaos, But I Feel Better.
The anonymous producer started making music during the mid-2000s; after a stint as a recording engineer, he began releasing his own recordings in early 2011, starting with The Manipulation EP. Later in the year, he issued Old Soul, an album that heavily sampled the music of Billie Holiday, whom L'Orange describes as his muse. The Still Spinning EP and the full-length The Mad Writer followed in 2012. L'Orange began a long, fruitful partnership with the Mello Music Group label in 2013, beginning with The City Under the City. A collaboration with Stik Figa, it also included appearances from Open Mike Eagle and yU. L'Orange’s next full-length, The Orchid Days, arrived in 2014. The album featured guest vocalists including Homeboy Sandman, Blu, and Jeremiah Jae. During the year, the producer also released singles featuring Mr. Lif, John Robinson, and Boog Brown. He then collaborated with Jae on a full-length, The Night Took Us in Like Family, which was released by Mello Music Group in April 2015. A few months later, the label issued Time? Astonishing!, L'Orange’s collaboration with legendary hip-hop eccentric Kool Keith.
In 2016, L'Orange and Mr. Lif collaborated on a full-length titled The Life & Death of Scenery, which was released in October. A year later, L'Orange released The Ordinary Man, a solo album that featured guest appearances from Del the Funky Homosapien, Oddisee, Blu, and others. He then formed the duo Marlowe with rapper Solemn Brigham, who was also featured on The Ordinary Man. The self-titled debut Marlowe was issued by MMG in 2018. L'Orange reunited with Jae for 2019′s Complicate Your Life with Violence; guests included Billy Woods and Chester Watson. Marlowe 2 appeared in 2020. L'Orange contributed to MMG’s 2021 compilation Bushido, and collaborated with Namir Blade on the blues-influenced full-length Imaginary Everything. He also released the weary but optimistic instrumental album The World Is Still Chaos, But I Feel Better. ~ Paul Simpson