Kelman Duran

Born in 1984 in La Ermita, Espaillat province, Dominican Republic, Kelman Duran grew up between his birthplace and Washington Heights, New York, where he settled as a child, before pursuing a path between Los Angeles and Berlin. A producer, composer, DJ and visual artist, Kelman Duran has, since the mid‑2010s, developed music at the crossroads of dembow, reggaeton, dancehall, hip‑hop and electronic music, often featuring stretched rhythms, reworked voices and deliberately unsettling atmospheres. Active in Los Angeles's Afro‑Caribbean underground scene through the RAIL UP parties, he released 1804 Kids in 2017 and 13th Month in 2019, two projects that shift club codes toward more meditative and fragmented forms. Night In Tijuana (2021) broadens this approach with ambient, spiritual and jazz inflections. Alongside his solo releases, Kelman Duran works for image and film: he composed the music for I Am Gangster (2015), directed To The North (2016) and wrote the score for Rodeo (2022). That same year he contributed to the writing and production of "I'm That Girl" and "Heated" on Beyoncé's Renaissance (2022).