Nicola Angelucci was born on July 10, 1979, in Altino, a small town in the province of Chieti, in Italy's Abruzzo region (a few sources instead give the nearby town of Guardiagrele as his birthplace; Altino is the town named consistently across his own agency biography and independent press, and the town where he now serves as artistic director of the Altino Jazz festival). He started on drums young, studying in his native region with percussionist Alberto Biondi, then moved to Rome in 2000 to deepen his jazz training with drummer Lorenzo Tucci and pianist Luca Mannutza.

That same year brought his first real recognition: a scholarship to Columbia College in Chicago and first prize at the Baronissi Jazz competition, which he won again in 2004. In 2002 he took the Grand Prix du Public at the Tramplin Jazz d'Avignon competition in France, and in 2004 he won the 26th Hoeilaart Jazz Contest in Belgium.

Based in Rome since 2000, Angelucci built a career mostly as a first-call sideman, with approximately 70 recordings as a session and touring drummer against three albums of his own as leader. His most enduring working relationships, confirmed at the Discogs credit level, are with three groups: Max Ionata's Quartet, on which he plays across Little Hand (2003), Inspiration (2009, with Fabrizio Bosso and Gegè Telesforo), Dieci (2011) and Inspiration Live (2014); Roma Trio, alongside bassist Gianluca Renzi and Luca Mannutza on piano, documented across four Venus Records albums from 2007 to 2012 (Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, Ciao Ciao Bambina, The Four Seasons Vol. 2 and L'Appuntamento); and the Fabrizio Bosso Quartet, where he has held the drum chair since 2013 alongside pianist Julian Oliver Mazzariello and bassist Jacopo Ferrazza, recorded on Duke (2015), State of the Art Live! (2017), Merry Christmas Baby (2017) and We Wonder (2022, with clarinetist Nico Gori as a guest).

His discography also carries substantial work with saxophonist Paolo Recchia, across Introducing (2008, featuring pianist Dado Moroni), Ari's Desire (2011) and Imaginary Place (2022, a working quartet with Recchia, Mannutza and bassist Giuseppe Romagnoli); with bassist Rosario Bonaccorso, on Travel Notes (2008) and In Cammino (2011); and one-off Discogs-verified dates with Enrico Pieranunzi (My Songbook, 2016, with Simona Severini), the Francesco Cafiso Quartet (Seven Steps to Heaven, 2006, with pianist Andrea Pozza), and the Bebo Ferra Trio, where he is the regular drummer alongside keyboardist Gianluca Di Ienno on Bebo Ferra's Voltage (2016) and Lights (2023).

As a leader, Angelucci's debut, The First One (2010, Via Veneto Jazz), was recorded largely in New York and brought together organist and pianist Sam Yahel, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, saxophonist Paolo Recchia, pianist Roberto Tarenzi, and bassists Francesco Puglisi, Johannes Weidenmüller and Kengo Nakamura, with liner notes contributed by Roberto Gatto. Its follow-up, Beyond the Drums (2013), kept Recchia, Roberto Tarenzi and Puglisi and added guitarist Peter Bernstein as a featured guest, with liner notes by Dado Moroni. His third and most recent leader album, Changes (2021, Flying Spark/Warner Music Italy), was his first release on a major label and his first devoted entirely to his own compositions; it features clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi, pianist and vocalist Olivia Trummer, and bassist Luca Bulgarelli, and by Angelucci's own account shifted his writing toward melody and lyricism after two records built more around rhythm. Changes is not yet catalogued on Discogs; its existence and personnel are independently confirmed through the Flying Spark label's own artist page, his official website, and retail and streaming listings including Qobuz.

Angelucci's own biography and artist materials also credit him with touring and performing alongside a run of major American names, most substantially Benny Golson, with whom he toured from 2004 to 2011 and who has been quoted describing him as the best drummer he played with in Europe, as well as Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Steve Grossman, Sonny Fortune, Mike Stern and Kurt Rosenwinkel. None of these carries an independently verified Discogs recording credit, so they are reported here as career context rather than confirmed sessions; the Marsalis connection is independently corroborated by Marsalis's own website, which credits Angelucci on drums for a "Wynton Marsalis & Friends" memorial concert in Andria, Italy, on August 6, 2012.

A Zildjian cymbals artist known for playing vintage Old K series cymbals, Angelucci has also taught, giving seminars at the Orsara Jazz festival in 2005 and 2006 and at the Eddie Lang Jazz Festival in 2012. He is not related to the Italian lawyer and politician of the same name, Nicola Angelucci (1895-1988), a Christian Democracy deputy in the Constituent Assembly and the first two legislatures of the Italian Republic; the two are an unrelated name match with no biographical or professional connection.

Angelucci works inside the mainstream, hard-bop-descended tradition, built through years as the house drummer for saxophone- and trumpet-led quartets rather than as a stylistic innovator on his own instrument. That grounding shows most directly on his first two leader albums, both recorded with the same working front line (Paolo Recchia on saxophone, Roberto Tarenzi on piano, Francesco Puglisi on bass) and each built around a featured American guest, organist Sam Yahel and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt on The First One, guitarist Peter Bernstein on Beyond the Drums. By his own description, those records emphasized rhythm and what he has called Afro-American influences. Changes (2021) marks a turn toward a more compositional, melody-first approach, built around original material rather than the quartet-plus-guest format, and toward a more chamber-like instrumentation, clarinet, piano and vocals, and bass, with Gabriele Mirabassi, Olivia Trummer and Luca Bulgarelli.