clipping. - Ideas and Ideals
Clipping (stylized as clipping.) is an experimental hip-hop trio consisting of two producers, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, with main vocalist/rapper Daveed Diggs. You might know the latter due to his involvement in the famous musical Hamilton (2020), where he played Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Nevertheless, that does not pertain to their music, where they try to experiment with strange hip-hop beats paired with Diggs’ normal rapping style.
Experimental hip-hop is nothing new, and clipping was in the early connoisseur of the genre, living up to the namesake more with each release; though, they’ve been stuck in the shadow of other acts like JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, and Death Grips. Compared to those other acts, though, clipping has a lot less of an industrial sound and arguably plays into its electronic-sounding elements moreso. While there are some random and harsh noises, especially on some of their songs such as “Inside Out,” the focus seems to be sampling—trying to make the sound interesting—but not carrying with it the harsh sounds of its competition. This groups has even created more pop-esque sounds like the track “Shooter.”
I would personally like to highlight “Blood Of The Fang,” which samples “The Blood of the Thing (Part 2)” from Ganja & Hess (1973), a horror, vampire movie. The sample is presented like a church sermon, and the hard bass overlaid throughout the song creates a sort of mysterious aurora prior to any words being uttered. This is simply a great listen that combines a quality sound with a powerful story that you should look into on your own.
That’s not the only great clipping. song, though, as the aforementioned “Shooter” is another great example, by using the sound of gunfire, complimented by a soft melody, to highlight their message. The song “Inside Out” does something similar, incorporating random noises that contrast between the intense chorus and casual verses. Another example is “work work,” which has an interesting beat accompanied by something that sounds like crashing glass going backward. Absurdity is a sampling tradition for clipping., and it doesn’t solely apply to real-world objects.
The production may be behind the composition of these songs, but the rapping is sound, and Diggs’s ability goes above and beyond. He’s able to match the weird and harsh sound given to him by the producers with an immaculate flow. Not only to say his voice when it comes to choruses is seemingly a gift, blended perfectly, but Diggs knows his stuff and the overall craft of rap. There’s seemingly even a rule he gives himself in which he writes his raps in the second or third person, never first. It’s a weirdly specific idea that really highlights a sense of detail from the band.
Whether clipping. lurches forward or hangs back stylistically (if they honor the hip-hop traditions or continue forward with the industrial textures of the new age experimental ideals), this contrast makes them stand out against the rest, making them uniquely memorable. For a final example, their song, “Nothing Is Safe,” invokes slasher horror flicks, especially Halloween (1978) and Friday the Thirteenth (1980), and takes direct inspiration from them. Through this all, it's clear that clipping.’s ideas and ideals put the band into its own genre.
Listen to clipping. on all of your normal streaming services; their unique features make them a must-listen!
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons