Kid Koala
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Eric Yick Keung San, born December 5, 1974, better known by his stage name Kid Koala, is a Canadian scratch DJ, music producer, theatre producer, film composer, multimedia-performer, and visual artist. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His career began as a scratch DJ in 1994. He inherited the name Kid Koala from his friends, who named him the Koala Kid based on the Koala Springs beverages his mom would always have at their house.
Kid Koala works with genres as eclectic as hip hop, ambient, alternative, contemporary classical, blues, classic rock, and traditional jazz. He has released 5 solo albums on Ninja Tune and 3 on Arts & Crafts Records, with his seventh album "Creatures of the Late Afternoon" released in 2023, which included a complete board game in a limited edition. San popularized a method of playing the turntable like a melodic instrument, where a long, single note is dragged under the needle at different speeds, creating different pitches.
He has been a member of Deltron 3030, Lovage, and the Slew, and has collaborated with artists such as Gorillaz and the Afiara String Quartet. Kid Koala has toured with Radiohead, Beastie Boys, Arcade Fire, Money Mark, A Tribe Called Quest, Mike Patton, DJ Shadow, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Beyond music, he has released two award-winning graphic novels: "Nufonia Must Fall" and "Space Cadet." In June 2014, Kid Koala's "Nufonia Must Fall Live" made its world premiere at Toronto's Luminato Festival, directed by K.K. Barrett (Oscar-nominee for Her), as a live adaptation of the graphic novel that unfolds via real-time filming of more than a dozen miniature stages. In 2023, he entered production on the animated film "Space Cadet," his directorial debut as a filmmaker, which is slated to have its world premiere at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, 2025. Kid Koala has toured 6 continents and lives with his wife and two daughters in Montreal, Canada.