Ryan Celsius (stylized as R y a n C e l s i u s °) is the pseudonym of a

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

–based music curator,

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

video artist Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. ...

music producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

and

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

. His YouTube channel features visual mixtapes, combining underground

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

phonk Phonk () is a subgenre of hip hop music, hip hop and trap music directly inspired by 1990s Memphis rap. The genre is characterized by its use of vintage Memphis rap vocals, chopped and screwed production techniques, and Sampling (music), sample ...

and

lo-fi Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate stylistic ch ...

tracks with nostalgic

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

and movie visuals. ''Trappin in Japan'', which began in 2017, is among the channel's most popular series.

Career

Based in

, Ryan Celsius began producing music and making videos in 2005. The same year, his production hardware was stolen, and he lost all the music and videos created. Celsius stated that the event made him stop producing music for eight years. In the early 2010s, Celsius got interested in the

vaporwave Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970 ...

culture, including vaportrap and simpsonwave. He opened his

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel in 2011 as a "personal project". The channel's video mixtapes combine underground

, trap and

music with nostalgic visuals from popular

clips and movies. Most of Celsius' tracks come from independent artists. The ''Trappin in Japan'' series, which began in 2017, is among the channel's most popular, featuring visual mixtapes with first-person footage of people driving or walking through Japanese streets, coupled with clips from nostalgic films such as '' Akira'', and imagery from ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...

''. He cites YouTube channel Emotional Tokyo as an inspiration for the series. The series, among others, was key to popularizing the phonk genre. Celsius' channel also holds 24/7 live streams of visual mixtapes. In January 2019, Celsius was hired by indie record label

Amuse Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or animal actively maintains the experience, and is associated with enjoyment, happiness, laughter and pleasure. It is an emotion with positi ...

to build their

lo-fi music Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate stylistic ch ...

division. In summer 2019, Celsius' YouTube channel was demonetized and several videos were " shadow banned" due to "misleading

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-o ...

s" in his videos. Celsius stated: "the YouTube policy team cannot understand the link between Japan, trap music, anime, ''The Simpsons'', so since they don't understand my content it must be misleading". In 2020, Celsius worked with Westbrook Media to create a lo-fi mixtape for

Will Smith Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, rapper, and film producer. Known for his work in both Will Smith filmography, the screen and Will Smith discography, music industries, List of awards and nominations re ...

's YouTube channel. In 2021, he performed with

Flying Lotus Steven Ellison (born October 7, 1983), better known as Flying Lotus or sometimes FlyLo, is an American record producer, DJ, filmmaker, and rapper. He has released seven critically acclaimed albums: ''1983'' (2006), ''Los Angeles'' (2008), '' Co ...

in New York, and was the visualizer maker for the official music video content of the TV series ''Yasuke''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Celsius, Ryan Date of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American music YouTubers YouTube channels launched in 2011 American DJs American video artists Record producers from Washington, D.C. Phonk Unidentified people Year of birth missing (living people) YouTubers from Washington, D.C.