THERE EXISTED AN ADDICTION TO VISIONS OF BODIES OF WORK BEING MERGED:

GETTING OUT THE HEART OF BLACK HORRORCORE

The following text is a fairly thorough, lovingly made essay I wrote for a fantastic collegiate course on Black art. The course focused on film, and Black horror specifically, but I pleaded that I be able to write about a series of Hip-Hop albums instead. Why? Because I had come to realize how important a connection there was between the subgenres of horrorcore rap and Black Horror film, and how the musical group Clipping. was the lynchpin that transforms this historical oddity into a full-blown underground movement, and it seemed like no one had yet made this observation. If you are a fan of Horror films or Hip-Hop, history, or cheesy writing be sure to check it out.

You can also find this essay as a Google Doc here.

An Introduction To And Exploration Of The Work Of clipping.

A California rap group composed of frontman Daveed Diggs and producer-engineer duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, Clipping rocked the world (or at least the experimental noise rap and underground hip-hop scenes) with their combination of harsh sound, obtuse sampling, and aggressive and lyrically dense rapping exclusively in the second- and third-person with their debut release midcity in 2013. Among the most interesting things about the group’s pitch that cemented initial public interest is their adherence to certain stylistic limitations as part of each new project, as well as some rules they follow for everything in their catalog: none of the words you hear are ever framed in the first person, and all the sounds used come from real world samples that fit contextually with the song’s themes (often captured with foley techniques and engineered like movie soundtracks). Signing to Sub Pop Records, they continued to release experimental and abstract records, often with compelling storytelling and an emphasis on subverting traditionally toxic tropes in the genre. The 2016 concept album Splendor & Misery told the story of a slave on an interplanetary slave (space)ship who violently gains his freedom and attempts to escape the society that suppresses and then hunts him; while also falling in love with the spaceship that carries him. The 2017 EP The Deep is a short story about an underwater society made up of all the unborn children of the pregnant woman killed and thrown off the decks of transatlantic slave ships waging war on the rest of humanity for digging for oil in their turf (or rather, surf). Finally, one of their most popular songs of all time comes from their sophomore album CLPPNG. The single “Body and Blood” takes the archetype of a maneater, an overdone sexist and often racist trope in many forms of media about a woman using sex to lure men to their deaths, and subverts it to be an empowering anthem for women while still finding a use for the accessibility and the draw of those traditionally misogynistic elements of both horror as a genre and Hip-Hop to some extent as well. Although Clipping often investigate and attack traditionally misogynistic or problematic themes that exist in Hip-Hop, they maintain that the art they create comes from a place of respect for the history of the genre and they consider it to be a continuation of the Hip-Hop tradition. With this context, this group may have the unique position to be able to take the traditional elements of the subgenre of horrorcore and the history and power of the subgenre of Black Horror in film and filter them together into an unholy unity. Clipping effectively highlights the true versatility of Black Horror and the true power of horrorcore by bloody marrying them into a Frankenstein’s couple. 

Focusing On the Horror Albums

At least, that’s what someone in their corner must have thought, because in October of 2019 they released There Existed an Addiction to Blood (TEAATB) and immediately followed it in October of 2020 with Visions of Bodies Being Burned (VOBBB); full length “Transmutation of horrorcore'' albums containing the themes and styles of the sub genre they come from, but using Diggs’ skill for writing in a deliberate, ingenious way. Both albums are full of songs that each tell an individually encapsulated story, making them similar to a Black Horror anthology like Tales from the Hood; crafting scenarios inspired by or ripped straight from horror films and telling them in second or third person with enough detail to fill a short film screenplay. This creates a hypnotic effect, a manipulation of your mind's eye. As your brain hears Diggs deliver rapidfire visual statements about what is happening to you, you can see them playing out, you can be tricked into thinking that you are thinking the thoughts you are being fed. The audio engineering creating the soundscape elevates this effect drastically, filling the white space with metal fences creaking (''She Bad''), alarms shrieking (“Attunement”), a pop song chorus that becomes warped and submerged in the mix (''Enlacing”), or an instrumental that only comes in when a car rolls by with its windows down (“Run for your life”). The unsettling nature of being placed into the middle of a Stephen King audiobook as the main character in addition to the fact that the audiobook is a bootleg download that’s been corrupted would make for a stressful couple of hours, so this method of storytelling is offset with the other way stories are conveyed on these albums. When Diggs retells a monstrous being's internal monologue or details its body chemistry, the stupidity of a victim’s naivete, or a series of brutal incidents with either an impersonal tone of narration or a biased storyteller who wants to see the killing agent enacted, the feelings that manifest allow for reprieve from the discomfort. The listener gains the arrogance of an audience member who has seen a film before and knows how it ends, or the misplaced confidence of someone who listens to gangsta rap and pretends they are the cold-blooded killer that they’re listening to. This catharsis eases some pressure and allows for the listener to still enjoy the experience of sitting through the album, but maintains a cognitive dissonance that is unsettling. That is one of the most notable achievements of Clipping’s work; the unlistenable becoming accessible. This phenomena is pervasive into the elements of noise music as well. There are several instances where a sheer wall of distorted noise or the clattering of pots, pans, and rhythm guitars being attacked with forks become the only discernible stimuli, but because these moments are slipped in between more traditionally enjoyable sounds, they become much more tolerable than you might initially expect.

A Short History Of Black Horror

Black Horror began to establish itself as a movement shortly after the release and surprise success of The Night of the Living Dead, when director George Romero made the decision to cast Duane Jones as the male lead. Subsequently, many Black directors and screenwriters like William Crane and Bill Gun were able to convince studio heads to fund their films (albeit meagerly) by pointing to films like it as well as the burgeoning niche of blaxploitation beginning to develop. Many producers were convinced to increase Black film representation during a time of harsh racial divide not by the promise of fair and equitable representation or high-minded notions of equanimity, but obviously because of the relatively safe return on investment of financing low-budget films for Black audiences, where they would steadily return a profit due to the exploitation of those communities’ desires to see themselves represented in media, as well as sexually exploiting Black women's bodies. Black Horror died as a genre as Black representation increased over the passing decades and its primary use seemed to be achieved. Then, Jordan Peele’s fantastically successful release of Get Out brought many eyes and minds back to the concept, and effectively revived the corpse of Black Horror by reframing what its purpose could be. Black Horror was ultimately fighting for space, representation, and the power to define what Black stories were to be told. Jordan Peele revived interest in it by first showing that that fight was nowhere near finished, that additions to the subgenre were still culturally desirable, and then with his following films started to interrogate further what other philosophical and sociological issues Black Horror was uniquely suited to portray. This lead to many incredibly exciting suggestions: The imagery and commentary about our collective obsession with spectacle and the importance of representation both in front of and behind the camera from NOPE, the articulation of Black existentialism, Black Marxism, and dissecting the heart of the American ethos in US, and even redefining the story of Candyman to revive the use of its story, similarly to how he renewed the subgenre of Black Horror with Get Out. When considering the trajectory of Black Horror as a movement or even Jordan Peele’s oeuvre by itself, the most notable change is a shift in emphasis from “getting the bag”, or doing the job no matter the negative impact on culture or representation, as long as it increases the sheer number of marginalized people in media, to a huge recentering of priorities about the kind and quality of stories being told by marginalized voices. 

Defining Horrorcore And The Nasty Surprise Of Clipping’s Releases

Primarily a space to piss off the more conservative and pearl-clutching sectors of the American experiment, horrorcore established itself as an even more extreme example of the kinds of lyrical content that could be found on an Ice-T, Ice Cube, or Dr. Dre affiliated project. Demeaning, deplorable, or downright homophobic and sexist language as far as the ear could hear, alongside very specific threats of violence and some devil worship and fascination with the macabre for good measure. The intent was always to deliver shock value, to say the things you are ordered not to say, and often the artists in this style risked both livelihood and personal safety to protest and uphold their right to free speech under the law. Being able to say things that were distasteful to the majority of the populace without being censored in their artistic expression was incredibly valuable when those voices could then use that space to speak truth to power. Hip-Hop and horrorcore specifically have never seen a significant dip in popularity since their inception, because they have steadily gained traction with a bigger and bigger portion of the population, first gaining huge support from suburban white children who found an entrancing false dichotomy between when they rejected parental expectations or rules and the art of marginalized people risking their safety to speak up against a government and societal structure that was deliberately hostile towards them. Regardless of the long debated ethical concerns about the fact that white people are the primary consumers of a genre of art predominantly made by and for Black communities, studies show this is the reality we live in. This also has had many raise the point that this means that although Black creators control the space they are in and the content they espouse, it means that the people that dictate what is and isn’t a profitable style are often outsiders looking in. This dynamic is somewhat comparable to the Blaxploitation era of film, except in many ways the pressure of the market is stronger than any controlling executive producer, because for many creatives it can feel like the extent of their free will is to choose whether to make what sells or to make a soundcloud album of a tree falling in a forest. Black people have consistently reported having a very strong sense of internal community, widely supported social programs as well as the importance of other minorities rights, but despite making up the majority of creators in Hip-Hop, the music’s messaging has stayed fairly stagnant. 

Biggie Smalls, Eminem, Three 6 mafia, the Geto Boys, and countless others have contributed to horrorcore over the years, but almost all of them relied on fairly accessible instrumentation for the time period and portrayed themselves as the machete wielding suburb killer, not as the victims or an instance of storytelling. This is primarily due to the fact that for so many, Hip-hop is a vehicle to maintain a community, to put food on the table, to escape from a bad situation. Over and over again, as efforts to take Hip-Hop’s ability to be that vehicle away, there had to be a showing of solidarity, that there were aspects to Hip-Hop that would not be changed, that would remain unwavering. This choice has had too many effects to enumerate, but one primary one is that the popular, accessible, commercial type of music to make it in Hip-Hop has a rich history of problematic or shocking lyrical content. Even among artists who vocally support socialist reforms, many make music that endorses an antisocial, hypercapital, individualistic view, because it sells and sales enable them to continue to live and support their families or communities. As it relates to my bigger point, this has resulted in a lot of Hip-Hop that stays inside one person's head. Even lyricists that push the human boundaries of creativity like Lupe Fiasco, who can conceptualize a project building as a giant robot or Nas rapping from the perspective of a gun remain locked behind a first person perspective, confining the world to a single agent of action. Clipping is a transmutation of these established roles. They showcase a way to deviate from the paths more traveled in the genre and find unique and inspiring hallows to unearth the music from. 

The Cold Case For A Crypt Connection

Similarly to Jordan Peele’s breakout hit Get Out, Clipping’s work feels like a breath of fresh, cold air. It feels shocking that a project like this had never been pulled off until 2019. Black Horror and Hip-Hop were both birthed in the early 1970’s, having both neared their semi-centennial by the time they were given an innovative redefinition. This means that Black Horror had existed for at least 15 years before horrorcore was established as an honest to goodness niche subgenre in the wheelhouse of Hip-Hop in the 1980’s. There was plenty of time for someone to connect the similar DNA between the two, but it just never was spliced until Clipping decided to give it the CRISPR. There are many direct parallels between Black Horror and horrorcore at large when considering this collection, but the main thread I wish to connect is the coronary artery that these two subgenres share, and how Clipping makes a powerful case for the argument that horrorcore can be revitalized similar to Black Horror to enhance its resonance as a style of art. 

The way in which Clipping employs film tropes from both Black Horror and the wider horror landscape shows just how well the mediums can work together when the proper care and respect are used. For example, in the single “Say the Name”, the lyrics both make a direct nod to Bernard Rose’s classic Candyman with a full retelling of a version of the cyclical story of violence and interracial love of the original. It also interpolates the Geto Boys song “Mind Playin’ tricks on me” with the lines “Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned.” This is a direct tie to the founders of the horrorcore movement, as well as a film that is not always considered as an example of true Black Horror, but is unquestionably one of the most influential films to the genre. 

“96’ Neve Campbell” includes a beat entrenched in horror cliche, a serial killer pounding on the door to the victims house, the classic woman’s gasp, and even some accompanying hairraising violin horror screeches. Over this instrumentation, the lyrics convey the story of a typical slasher antagonist stumbling on the wrong house and getting tortured to death by Inglewood rap legends Cam & China. They effectively subvert the “final girl” horror trope by not only surviving and subjecting the killer to his own medicine, but by  tributing Jada Pinkett Smith’s performance in Tales from the Crypt - being Black women who don’t entertain the possibility of being victims. This messaging is also a subversion of the typical stories told in horrorcore. It’s easier to imagine the faceless slasher villain they deface is Eminem with his trademark chainsaws, fresh off of “Brainless.”

“Pain everyday" effectively answers the question “What would it sound like if I was an undead ghost stuck in a TV?” through its utterly depraved combination of glitching, skipping electronic synthesizers and what I assume to be a real demon stuck in a slaughterhouse rattling the metal freezer with its chains. The lyrics also convey a deeply unseated depiction of what the average day in the life of such a ghost would be like, with lines like “There ain’t nothing after life but the pain from the way you died and something reminiscent of hunger but if you had a stomach only satiated by making somebody run.”

“Eaten alive” fully embraces the experimental noise with a spine tingling combination of sparse, skeletal steel pans, a bass guitar being played by a man with cheese grater fingers, and Gordon Ramsay having a tantrum in the kitchen. The lyrics delve into the everyday life of the creatures of the swamp, and fall into a sheer abyss as the noises become more and more random and violent until they become the only discernible thing for the final two minutes. The sound design conveys the horrible and insidious things that these beings will do to you if they have the chance, and it's simply a part of nature. 

 One of the best, most clear examples of a subgenric transplant occurs in “Blood of the Fang''. Not only does this song sample the primary theme from the cult classic Black Horror film Ganja and Hess, but it is filled with lyrical allusions and direct commentary on its most evocative ideas. This is most evident when considering Bill Gun’s letter to the plight of the Black male existence: 

“To the Black male children. Philosophy is a prison. It disregards the uncustomary things about you. The result of individual thought is accruable only to itself. There is a dreadful need in man to teach. It destroys the pure instinct to learn. The navigator learns from the stars. The stars teach nothing. The sun opens the mind and sheds light on the flowers. The eyes shame the pages of any book. Gesture destroys concept. Involvement mortifies vanity. You are the despised of the Earth. That is as if you were water in the desert. To be adored on this planet is to be a symbol of success. And you must not succeed on any terms. Because life is endless. You are as nameless as a flower. You are the child of Venus. And her natural affection is lust. She will touch your belly with her tongue, but you must not suffer in it, because love is all there is. And you are a cannon fodder in its defense.”

The song connects the themes of bloodlust and the history of bloodshed in colonist countries, while portraying the many Black revolutionaries and civil rights activists who were killed over the years as undead vampires coming back to kill white supremacists, because peaceful protests are not sufficient to stop racial injustice. But the song delivers more than this. In the chorus, Diggs says “Look back, blood on the ground. Look straight, they’re still shooting. Jump back, still here. Now what that tell you ‘bout death? Death ain’t shit.” This is a rebuttal of the existential nihilism that Gunn’s character George Meda succumbs to when considering the Black condition. While interrogating the failures of liberals in the face of oppression and the constant threat of systemic violence that can loom over the Black community, Diggs reaffirms that “death ain’t shit.” It doesn’t matter what you try to do to us he says, we’re still here. 

Is It Alive Or Is This A Lie? Dearly Departing Thoughts

The concept and execution of these two albums seamlessly marry the ethos of Black Horror (using the trope and storytelling of horror to tell Black stories or enumerate Black experiences) with the sub-genre of horrorcore (A niche of Hip-Hop, a principally Black-led medium of art with a focus of horror themes). This makes so much sense you would think it would have been done before 2019, but this peanut butter and chocolate combination was apparently so obvious that no one thought to do it, or perhaps no one could convince a record label it would be worth putting money into. Thankfully, we live in a time where Jordan Peele’s recent successes can be leveraged by many Black creators outside of himself to pitch stories that would otherwise never be produced or financed. Additionally, it's worth making the point that film as a medium has a much higher monetary barrier to entry regardless of genre, and as a result has historically had to have representation and stake fought for and claimed by Black voices in a slow series of concessions. Hip Hop began existence in a world where music was already commercialized, and many of the genres of music that had originated in Black communities like Rock n’ Roll, Jazz, Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Soul, and Funk had already seen success and then been aggressively co-opted by white audiences who preferred white artists and entertainers and often stopped Black creators from having a voice. Much like these other genres, Hip-Hop was created principally because of and for the sake of Black spaces, but unlike its predecessors has avoided many, many attempts at separating the Black art from the Black people who make it. Through collective hard work and effort, it has maintained its position as one of the only American cultural touchstones that is still defined predominately by the Black community, and the white majority that has progressively made up more and more of both the primary consumer base and the primary stakeholders in the music industry have not been able to either stop it from becoming a cultural force or replacing the Black identity inherent to it without removing a great deal of its commercial versatility. We live in a time where Hip-Hop can and has begun to change. Women rappers, once a group constantly pushed to the margins of the rap sheet, now are consistently headliners. Queer artists like Lil Nas X, Tyler, the creator, and Frank Ocean are widely accepted in the space and have their stylistic influence copied constantly. In this context, Horrorcore as a music subgenre can be reinvented just like Black Horror was reinvented as a film subgenre to better serve the community that originally made it, especially in the wake of films like Get Out. This context transforms Clipping’s double Halloween album from a weirdly camp stylistic choice to an genuine attempt at a massively important cultural shift, so I think it's a pretty essential “reading” of the content.

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