clipping., “Dead Channel Sky”

Dead Channel Sky, the fifth album by hip-hop trio clipping., is really great. But first, a history lesson; please bear with me.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that’s generally accepted to have begun with the movie “Blade Runner” in 1982 and William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer” in 1984. The specifics vary wildly, but the genre is defined by a few general aesthetics.

First, humanity is connected by a network of computers that’s required to function in society. The rich live extravagant lifestyles of comfort and opulence while the masses struggle to scrape by. Rather than the gleaming future of most sci-fi, cyberpunk technology is utilitarian and often rough around the edges. The world is controlled by a handful of ultra-rich monopolies that control everyone’s lives and go so far as to run the government either through buying influence or even appointed positions.

Most consider “The Matrix” in 1999 to be the last great work of cyberpunk, not because the genre died, but because after that, it quickly stopped being fiction. While most cyberpunk authors missed on some things, most notably cell phones, the big parts came true. They tried to warn us which way we were headed, and they were right.

Dead Channel Sky, the group’s first since 2020’s Visions of Bodies Being Burned and 2019’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood, is a cyberpunk album. In fact, the title comes from the first sentence of “Neuromancer:” “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” And of any music group, clipping. is uniquely positioned to do it justice.

Daveed Diggs, one of the three men who make up clipping., is primarily known as an actor. His big break was as the original Lafayette/Jefferson in “Hamilton,” the first performance of which was a mere five months after clipping.’s first mixtape in 2013. Since then, he’s been in everything from “Blindspotting” to “Star Trek: Prodigy.” He has an excellent career on screen, and that sensibility is important to how well the group pulls off the vibe it’s trying to convey.

Diggs is also a fantastic writer, as anyone who saw “Blindspotting” knows, and the group has already won two Hugo Awards, the Oscars of science fiction. It takes that level of creativity to pull off what it did, which is to take the trappings of the cyberpunk genre and frame commentary on the world as it currently stands through a sci-fi style that predicted it with shocking accuracy. It’s tough to balance, but clipping. pulls it off magnificently.

It also helps that the group’s signature style, using samples of real-world sounds, just inherently sounds cyberpunk. A music group that builds its sound on recording and looping things like breaking bottles and power tools is exactly the sort of thing you’d find in an ’80s Gibson book. Paired with Diggs’ massively underrated vocals—even without the concept and theme, it’s incredible music. Diggs has the creative range of the late Shock G from Digital Underground—sounding as good as he does as Lafayette with the over-the-top French accent isn’t easy—and he has the speed and flow of the late Gift of Gab from Blackalicious.

Across the album’s 17 tracks, two interludes and an intro, it’s hard to pick favorites because it works best as one coherent unit, which is the goal of any concept album. Don’t get me wrong, the singles (especially “Change the Channel” and “Run It”) are great. The guests, including the likes of Aesop Rock, Oakland rapper and actress Tia Nomore and computer music collective Bitpanic are all incredibly well-used. But even the standout songs are like a movie’s best scenes: good on their own but not the same without the context.

Dead Channel Sky is experimental for sure; it doesn’t really sound like much else out there, and it doesn’t try to. That’s probably a weakness commercially, but it’s also the album’s greatest strength artistically. What clipping. did is pull off an album that’s more than the sum of its parts, a cohesive work with a style and a message that doesn’t sacrifice musical quality for the big picture. It would be a surprise if the group doesn’t win another Hugo, and this time, it should probably also come with a Grammy.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.