Steven Ellison, AKA Flying Lotus, has been putting out albums of pranged-out electronic funk for 20 years now, alongside a film-making career that has gone way beyond a hobbyist side project. As he prepares to release new EP, Big Mama, on 6 March, he’ll be answering your questions.
Born into a musical family including Alice Coltrane as his great aunt, Ellison released debut album 1983 in 2006 but established his reputation with 2008’s Los Angeles: a crumpled, squelching mass of hip-hop beats and squirrelly melodies that was hailed as an instant electronic classic. More and more vocalists hopped on board for future projects – Kendrick Lamar, Thom Yorke and George Clinton among them – as his music scaled to ever greater psychedelic heights, including 3D-enhanced live shows.
He split off into rap alter ego Captain Murphy; founded the label Brainfeeder, putting out music by artists including Thundercat and the late Ras G; and in 2017 moved into film with Kuso, a fantastical body horror positively oozing with bizarre characters and unspeakable fluids. He contributed a chapter of the horror anthology film V/H/S/99, teeing him up for an entry into the film-making mainstream with 2025’s Ash, a freaky sci-fi nightmare starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul.
He hasn’t released an album since 2019’s Flamagra, but soundtracks and EPs have come along regularly, joined now by Big Mama. Ellison will answer your questions about this tentacular and ever-morphing career: post them in the comments below before 5pm GMT on Tuesday 17 February, and we’ll publish his answers in the 20 February edition of our Film & Music section, as well as online.