Kutiman

Ophir Kutiel (אופיר קותיאל; born April 21, 1982), professionally known as Kutiman (Hebrew: קותימן), is an Israeli musician, composer, producer and animator.

He is best known for creating the online music video project, ThruYOU, a self-titled album, and the viral ongoing series "Thru the City" including his "Mix Tel Aviv" piece, which went viral on YouTube.

Kutiel was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in Zichron Yaacov.

He commenced piano lessons at the age of six and learned to play drums and guitar at 14.

When Kutiel was 18, he moved to Tel Aviv to study jazz at Rimon Music College.

While working at a convenience store in Tel Aviv, Kutiel discovered a college radio station that was playing genres of music that were vastly different from the classical jazz he was accustomed to.

Following this experience, Kutiman met Sabbo, another Israeli artist, who introduced him to Afrobeat and funk music, including the sounds of James Brown and Fela Kuti, among many others.

As Kutiel's taste for music deviated from his traditional training, in 2003, Kutiman embarked on a journey to Jamaica, where he researched reggae and worked with Stephen and Damien Marley.

In 2006, Kutiman signed to German music label, Melting Pot Music, based in Cologne.

Soon after, his first single, "No Groove Where I Come From", was released, followed by the release of the hit song "Music is Ruling My World"—a collaboration with Karolina of Habanot Nechama.

Kutiman's eponymous debut album, which received an 8.2 rating from Pitchfork Media and a 7 out of 10 from PopMatters, was released in the fall of 2007.

Under the Radar picked Kutiman as one of the "Artists to Watch in 2008", along with Glasvegas and MGMT.

In 2009, Kutiman released "Thru You," an online music video project, featuring a mixture of samples of YouTube videos, and the video project received more than 10 million views in around two weeks.

Time Magazine named it one of the "50 Best Inventions of 2009".

In a June 2009 Internet radio interview, Kutiman described how he first conceived of Thru You:

At first I took some drummers -- before I had the idea about Thru You, I took some drummers from YouTube and I played on top of them -- just for fun, you know.

And then one day, just before I plugged in my guitar to play on top of a drummer from YouTube, I thought to myself, you know, maybe I can find a bass and guitar and other players on YouTube to play with this drummer...

Kutiman spent two months working on the Thru You project, and, as Kutiman described:

It took me two months, but it was really intense.

I barely ate, I just worked on a computer and went to sleep...day and night, and night and day...didn't see any friends, no family...not even the sun.

After disclosing his work to only 20 friends, Kutiman's project spread virally across the web, racking up more than one million views in less than a week.

After viewing Thru You, open source advocate, Lawrence Lessig, praised the project for pioneering a new, less-regulated form of media, stating, "If you come to the Net armed with the idea that the old system of copyright is going to work just fine here, this more than anything is going to get you to recognize: you need some new ideas."

Kutiman has also won the 2010 ACUM Prize for producing Karolina's album What Will I Do Now?

In the summer of 2010, Kutiman co-headlined a concert bill with DJ Shadow in Tel Aviv, performing with his live band, The Kutiman Orchestra.

Due to the success of Thru You, in October 2010, Kutiman was invited by YouTube to perform at the "YouTube Play" grand opening at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Two years after the release of Thru You, Kutiman created a new Thru You-like video, titled My Favorite Color, subsequently attracting the attention of numerous publications, including Wired, Fader, and Mashable, the latter awarding the piece its "Video of the Day" accolade.

In June 2012 Kutiman released a single and video clip, "Dover. D".

This video, created by Kutiman, documents a street art project by Dover D. Kutiman produced this song and played all instruments, featuring Elran Dekel, lead singer of Funk'n'stein, on vocals.

This song was featured on Gilles Peterson's BBC Radio 6 Music show

In 2014, Kutiman was nominated for a Webby Award in the Video Remix/Mashup category for his ‘Thru Tokyo’ project, in which he created an intimate musical landscape for the city of Tokyo.

He has since been commissioned by various cities such as JerusalemTel Aviv, Riga, Krakow and New York to create audio/visual portraits of each city’s uniqueness.

Following the success of ‘Thru You,’ Kutiman released ‘Thru You Too’ in October 2014, an online music album composed of unrelated YouTube videos.

He was awarded a 2015 Webby Honoree for his work on ‘Thru You Too’.

This project led to collaborations with some of the world’s most prominent producers, DJs, and musicians for the ‘Thru You Remixes’.

It featured nine producers, representing different genres and countries: Garden City Movement, Mixmonster & Kalbata, Jim Dunloop & Grzly Adams, Rejoicer, Free The Robots, Red Axes, Tomgi, La Dame Noir and Copia Doble Systema.

In July 2015, Kutiman released Space Cassava, a two-track vinyl featuring deep jazz and funk.

The EP served as a soft launch for Kutiman's label, Siyal Music.

The official launch of the label kicked off with the release of Kutiman's sophomore album 6AM in June 2016.

The eight track album features a more psychedelic sound.

Shortly after the release of "6am" in July 2016, Kutiman was nominated and won the Vibe Israel & Shorty Story award for "Outstanding Content Creator in Israel".