Most people will recognize actor/musician/writer Daveed Diggs from his fast-rapping turns as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. But Diggs' resume doesn't stop there. Among other things, he's also part of the experimental sci-fi-tinged hip-hop group clipping., along with producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. The group received a Hugo Award nomination for their song "The Deep," which also inspired a novel of the same name by Rivers Solomon that was recognized as one of NPR's Best Books of 2019; their album "Splender & Misery" was also nominated for a Hugo.
Now clipping. is back with a new single called "Say The Name" (above), which is the first track off their upcoming horrorcore album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned. The band offered this statement when they announced the album:
There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate—more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.
It's cryptic, but that's clipping. for ya. Here's a little more context from their record label:
Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping are never critical of their cultural references. Their angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore—the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s—the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny.
No matter what clipping. does, it's almost guaranteed to be cutting edge. It's the kind of art that (I think) is always worth checking out, just for the experience.
