Tag: Shabazz Palaces

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Weird Personal and Deeply Human Hip-Hop of Quelle Chris

Quelle Chris is a Detroit, MI-based emcee and producer, who’s forthcoming full-length effort Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often is slated for a February 10, 2017 release through Mello Music Group and the album reportedly reveals the Detroit-based emcee and rapper as being among a growing list of self-aware emcees/artists, who have focused on the vacillating waves of self-confidence and self-doubt and the difficult (and seemingly endless) search for balance between the two; and in the case of Quelle Chris’s latest effort and that our lives are most often a complicated and delicate tightrope walk between our better angels and their worst devils — all while featuring guest spots from Roc Mariano, Elzhi, Homeboy Sandman, Denmark Vessey, Jean Grae and Cavalier, along with production assists from MNDSGN, Iman Omari, Chris Keys, Swarvy and The Alchemist.

Being You Is Great’s latest single “Calm Before” is a collaboration with Cavalier and Suzi Analogue that pairs Quelle Chris’ and Cavalier’s easy-going yet thoughtful rhyming over a jazzy sample of twinkling keys, stuttering drum programming and a chopped up and distorted sample of Suzi Analogue’s vocals for the song’s hook that sonically ties the song to a lengthy tradition of weird yet conscious hip-hop that includes A Tribe Called Quest and Shabazz Palaces among others but while subtly giving the song a tense, uneasy feel. After all, the song much like the material on the album focuses on the uneasy balance we attempt between our external self-image and our internal self-image and in a way that feels real and empathetic — all while reminding the listener that even your heroes fuck things up royally and aren’t as confident or as perfect as you think.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: clipping’s Vicious Anti-Donald Trump Diss Track “Fat Fingers”

Recently, the trio participated in the 30 Songs, 30 Days project, contributing a vicious and scathing anti-Donald Trump diss track “Fat Fingers” in which Diggs references Nas’ legendary diss track “Ether” and the Canadian anthem “O, Canada” to a sparse yet forcefully minimalist production featuring a sample of people whislting the melody of the Canadian anthem, boom bap-beats, industrial clang and clatter. Fuck Donald Trump and everything about him and his family!

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: clipping Performing “Taking Off” at Moog Sound Lab

clipping’s latest effort “Splendor & Misery”, is a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is both futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre time. And since the release of the album I’ve written about its first three singles “Baby Don’t Sleep,” “Air ‘Em Out” and “A Better Place” and each single manage to further cement the trio’s reputation for pairing minimalist and industrial productions with Diggs’ rapid fire rhyming — but at points the material reveals a subtle refinement of their sound in which at times the material is both melodic and radio-friendly, while evoking the impending apocalypse or the immensity, senselessness and indifference of the universe, the nature of man’s mind and so on.

Recently the trio was invited to Moog Sound Lab to perform “Taking Off” off Splendor & Misery and the video reveals how the trio creates their eerily fucked and hellish sonic vision live — in the case of this song clattering and clinking synths, stuttering drum programming are paired with Diggs ridiculously dexterous rhyming, in which he rhymes about gangstas riding rockets into the sky by getting fucked up in a parking lot, late at night, surreal, almost disconnected violence. And of course they do so while using a ton of really awesome Moog gear.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Check Out clipping’s Gravity Defying Visuals for Their Menacing New Single “Air ‘Em Out”

Splendor & Misery’s second single “Air ‘Em Out” features an ominous and menacing production featuring stuttering drum programming, industrial clinking and clanking, swirling electronic, brief bursts of twinkling synths that mischievously nods at trap hop while Diggs rhymes about what sounds like either an alien invasion, a zombie apocalypse or a civil war — all happening simultaneously perhaps, complete with roving gangs causing trouble, killing people and getting fucked up. Seriously, someone should make a movie out of that. And while being absolutely vicious, the song also manages to be the most melodic and (somewhat) radio-friendly song they’ve released to date.

Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, the recently released video features Diggs as a disinterested and bored security guard, who after taking medication finds the surrounding objects in his dark office trembling to the woofer and tweeter rocking beats just as they began to defy gravity.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Glorious, Cosmos-Leaning, New Visuals for Shabazz Palaces’ “Dawn in Luxor”

Shabazz Palace’s latest single “Forerunner Foray” much like “#CAKE” is a single that effortlessly morphs and shifts seemingly at will; however, there’s a subtle trap influence as the song possesses enormous boom-bap beats that pair perfectly with Butler’s ridiculous flow.