The Potency of Horror: clipping. ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ (2019)
Experimental hip hop group clipping’s 2019 album ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ is a powerful example of the potential of the genre of horror for deep social commentary on race relations and violence.
clipping. began as an experimental project that remixed hip hop into noise music, but quickly the group began composing original music that saw rapper Daveed Diggs adding his unique style over the syncopated, sample-based score. Unmoored from adherence to a backing melody Diggs exercises his song-writing freedom liberally, weaving detail-rich narratives with highly descriptive verse effective at conjuring visual imagery.
As the musical shadow of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ revels in the tropes and history of horror cinema, from Michael Meyer’s musical theme in Halloween (1987), to cheesy one liners used to break cinematic tension (the refrain of ‘oh he dead’). The album opens with Diggs rapping on what sounds like a radio, rather than being crisp and the focus of our ear we can also catch the ambient sounds of the night, as well as another more mysterious sound we can’t quite make out. We soon realise it is the sound of a shovel digging and begin constructing the scene of a gravedigger listening to the radio, or worse, a killer burying a body.
Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017)
As well as recalling the ambience and scores of horror movies with rich organs and synths, crackling filters and background noise, the narratives told in each song of ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ squarely face the legacy of blaxploitation cinema (such as Blacula (1972) or Tales from the Hood (1995)). Rather than the campy aesthetic of these earlier films however, clipping. embraces a much darker, and more bloody mood. This is emphasised through Diggs’ evocative and visceral vocabulary with strong sense-association (‘sewage’, ‘vomit’).
Since the killing of George Floyd (but also well before through blaxploitation) horror has resurfaced as a potent genre for laying bare racist violence and systemic injustice. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us (2019), Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s debut Antebellum (2020) and Remi Weekes’ His House (2020) all take our collective familiarity with horror as a genre to open up powerful metaphors of oppression and trauma. What new meaning might the familiar and undoubtedly shocking image of the bloodied protagonist running from a crazed chainsaw-wielding cannibal (Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)) have in the context of black bodies pursued by police?
‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ earns its place among the best in this broader filmic recourse to horror as a metaphorical and political genre for telling stories of racism. The bloody lyrical vignettes and at times abrasive noise serve as well as any jump scare to shock and disquiet us, opening up the realities of contemporary black life in the US through a touch of magical-thinking and metaphor. Common among all the songs on the album is the theme of being pursued, of running for your life, of survival (‘stay alive at all costs’) that is familiar from horror: someone’s always running or trying to stay alive. The nuance of the references, the audio aesthetic and lyrical pacing evidence a clear understanding of how horror movies operate in their combination of imagery and sound (such as the much maligned ‘sting’, that giant abrasive sound that accompanies jump scares). This technical mastery of the audio tropes of horror storytelling come from the group’s beat-makers, composers Jonathan Snipes—who has scored a number of indie horror films (Starry Eyes (2014)) and documentaries (The Nightmare (2015))—and William Huston—who has likewise scored horror and thriller projects including Room 237 (2012). The cinematic styling is also enhanced by Diggs, perhaps best known for his role as Thomas Jefferson in the hit musical Hamilton along with roles in the tv show Snowpiercer and cult satire Velvet Buzzsaw (2019).
In the history of hip hop this is nothing new. Horrorcore has been around since the 1990s, most notably in the Memphis horrorcore scene (classics include Pyscho’s ‘The Return of Pyscho’ (1995) and the work of Tommy Wright III), and the early releases of Odd Future Wolfgang and Lil’ Ugly Mane (‘Mista Thug Isolation’) in the 2010s. What characterises horrorcore is bloodthirsty content that deals with the realities of gang and police violence, murder and drug abuse. In the UK a recent example can be found in the work of rapper slowthai, whose music videos directly reference the history of horror cinema (‘Cancelled’, ‘Inglorious’ and ‘Drug Dealer’ to name but a few). Clipping’s ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’ extends this genre through the importation of horror’s audio tropes (in addition to visual identity and themes) which makes this album something special.
For fans of hip hop, experimental music, electronic music, metaphors, horror movies.