BLUE SKY BLACK DEATH

Blue Sky Black Death is the production duo of Kingston and Televangel, whose cinematic approach to hip-hop marked out its own corner of independent music in the 2000s and beyond. Formed in 2003 between the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, the duo built a catalog on dense sampling, live instrumentation, and expansive arrangements, from underground rap records to the sweeping instrumentals of Late Night Cinema (2008), Noir (2011), and Glaciers (2013). Along the way they produced full-length collaborations with Jean Grae, Hell Razah, Nacho Picasso, and Deniro Farrar, lending their widescreen sound to some of independent rap's most distinctive voices.