Hip-hop group clipping. just released a new video for their song “Story 2” from their exceptional, newish album CLPPNG. In the song MC Daveed Diggs tells a dark story about a criminal who tried to go straight, only to have his past and the “block full of charred skeletons” in his closet come back to haunt him. Over Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson’s repetitive, electronic beats, the track slowly builds momentum as the story unfolds, ultimately leading to the moment that the protagonist, in both the song and the video, sees his house burning with his children inside and cries “Why won’t you just let me die?”
Equally as chilling is the new video, which syncs up with the song perfectly. Each time the beat skips, the camera jump cuts and each time the lyrics reveal another detail of the twisted story, the protagonist starts moving faster, heightening the sense of impending doom. Much like the song itself, the video is a perfectly executed exercise in making the listener uncomfortable, accentuated by the fact that throughout the entire video, the camera never pans above the protagonist’s chest giving the holy-shit-this-could-be-anyone feeling that clipping. was probably going for.
Check out the video for “Story 2” above and look for CLPPNG on Sub Pop.
