Broke Beats is BDCwire’s open-source hip-hop column. Every Saturday, we showcase the best new albums, EPs, and mixtapes available for free stream or download.
The inaugural seven days of June was a banner week for hip-hop. We had this dope Brother Ali freestyle from Soundset, a lengthy new Trap Wiz mixtape, a sneak peek at the Sole x DJ Pain 1 album, and two looks at k.flay’s debut “Life as A Dog.” Beyond that, our boy Lukey the Bird dropped a new song and announced a weekly remix series.
Overall, this week has kicked ass for fans of rap music. Dear Summer indeed.
However, what trumps all this is the advance stream of Sub Pop Records’ oddball trap rap trio clipping.‘s new album “CLPPNG,” which premiered via NPR this week. The album – which clocks in at nearly an hour of pure scene-inverting joy – is the first rap record of 2014 worth going absolutely bananas over.
Daveed Diggs, the style-switching voice of clipping., bursts out of the gates with his taut, disarming flow, immediately establishing that this is not an album to get comfortable with. Diggs is a iconoclast avatar of Andre 3000, as the Los Angeles emcee rifles through the industry standards of drugs, money, and objectification in an unencumbered romp that runs circles around radio rap with its no-holds-barred reworking of stereotypes.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, the duo behind the dials for this accosting noise LP, turn on the industrial cacophony to float Diggs. The two put wrenches to an alarm clock for “Get Up” and, elsewhere on the record, work a nervous network of chimes, steel drums, and crackhouse snares for an equilibrium-destroying backing sound that makes “CLPPNG” one of the most unique sounding records to come out of LA this millennium. As uncomfortable as it feels, its insane at the genius level.
Since NPR is for old people with ear hair, there’s not embed code for the entire album, but you can stream it right here.
Also, I know this sort of undermines the philosophy of this column, but I’m going to go ahead and recommend you pre-order the album before it drops Tuesday, June 10, and, you know, actually pay for music. It goes against everything I stand for, but it’s worth it in this case, trust me.
