Blue Sky Black Death
| Blue Sky Black Death | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Torso Orphan, 88 Ultra (Kingston) Rev. Left (Young God) |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Genres | Instrumental hip hop, alternative hip hop, trip hop |
| Occupation(s) | Producers |
| Instruments | Drum machine, sampler, keyboard, synthesizer, guitar |
| Years active | 2003–present |
| Labels | Fake Four Inc, Mush Records, Babygrande Records |
| Associated acts | Holocaust, Hell Razah, Jean Grae, Alexander Chen, Deniro Farrar, Child Actor |
| Members | Kingston Young God |
Blue Sky Black Death (abbreviated BSBD) is a production duo based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It consists of Ryan Maguire, better known by his stage name Kingston, and Ian Taggart, better known by his stage name Young God. They are known principally for their hip hop and instrumental music, made with a mixture of live instrumentation and sampling. Their name is "a skydiving phrase alluding to beauty and death."
Kingston and Young God met and began collaborating on music in 2003. Young God, working under the name Rev. Left, began creating beats to rap over, but abandoned rapping and started producing exclusively around 2000. Kingston, working under the name Orphan, began his solo producing career collaborating with rapper Noah23 and the Plague Language collective (to which Young God also contributed production). Kingston entirely produced Noah23's debut album Cytoplasm Pixel in 1999, and the two collaborated closely until Jupiter Sajitarius in 2004, after which they parted ways. In the same year, Kingston worked on projects for Virtuoso's Omnipotent Records. He contributed a number of tracks to Jus Allah's scheduled Omnipotent debut All Fates Have Changed, but the album was shelved. The tracks "Vengeance" and "Drill Sergeant" were later released on BSBD's Dirtnap mixtape, and a number of other beats recorded for the album were bootlegged on The Devil'z Rejects album Necronomicon. One Kingston beat, "Supreme (Black God's Remix)" was included on the Babygrande Records release of All Fates Have Changed in 2005.
The duo, collaborating initially under the name Torso, signed their first record deal with Mush Records in 2005 to release the label's first double-disc album. During the album's production, the duo settled on their current name. The album, A Heap of Broken Images, was released on June 23, 2006. The first disc featured twelve instrumental tracks with heavy live-instrumentation, while the second disc featured nine rap collaborations made with traditional hip hop sampling, and a closing instrumental. The guests included Rob Sonic, Mike Ladd, Jus Allah, Sabac Red, Wise Intelligent, A-Plus, Pep Love, Chief Kamachi, Myka 9, Virtuoso, Awol One and Holocaust. The album received acclaim from various sources, including Vapors, Word, Mean Street, UK Hip Hop and Allmusic, and landed the duo on URB's "Next 100." Around the same time, the duo completed a collaborative project with Ceschi Ramos entitled Deadpan Darling, which was never released due to the loss of most of the final mixes on a crashed hard drive.
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