"She was like a demon slayer, and I thought that was fire," Seattle-based electronic, hip-hop and R&B producer Kai Asa Savon Wright told me over the phone last month.
Wright, better known by his stage name Sango, was talking about an eponymous supporting character from the anime series "Inuyasha."
"[The name Sango] comes from this cartoon, this anime I used to watch, 'Inuyasha.' It's the name of one of the female characters," he said.
While Wright was born in Washington, he spent 13 years in Michigan, a state whose identity has largely been characterized by its hard-working, blue-collar ethos. While there, he studied graphic design at Western Michigan University and really only moved to back to his birth state for family reasons.
Having honed both the visual and aural aspects of Sango during his time in Michigan, Wright set about separating himself from the pack, releasing 14 EPs, two studio albums and one mixtape in a span of only eight years.
"At that point in time, I was trying to like make it. I had to put a lot of content out ... [because] I wanted to be an artist that is also a producer. If you release that much, people are going to realize, 'Oh, this guy's for real,'" Wright said.
His latest effort -- made all the more impressive because he's now married and a father to a toddler -- is his second studio album, "In the Comfort Of," which features the mystifying single, "Sweet Holy Honey."
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"Xavier Omar [guest vocalist] and I, we sat down and I was like, 'Man, I want to write a song about a topic that’s never done before,'" Wright told me.
"The source of the idea was deciding to not have sex in a relationship. My wife and I, at the time we were dating, we decided not to have sex," he added.
Obviously, that's since changed. Wright and his wife, Angela Lopez-Wright, welcomed Mateo Wright into the world on Sept. 17, 2016.
"It’s affected it [his life] a lot. I have to be attentive; I have to be alert -- you know, daddy duty," Wright said.
As for the effect of fatherhood on his music?
"Quality goes up, but the quantity goes down. I’m just really glad that I started producing at a young age," he responded.
Wright is only 26 years old, and already he seems to be approaching some semblance of comfort with his creative career. After eight years of hard work, he's found a rhythm.
Now, Sango's turning outward, asking his audience: "What in your life are you most comfortable about and what are you least comfortable about, and how can we have a conversation about that through music?"
Sango headlines Observatory North Park on May 23. Get tickets here.
Rutger Ansley Rosenborg has been an Associate Editor at NBC SoundDiego since 2016. Find out more here, or contact him here.
