Daveed Diggs & Clipping Made A Cute Hanukkah Song For Disney
A month and a half ago, Clipping released their album Visions Of Bodies Being Burned, a dense and bloody tribute to ’90s horrorcore rap and to the horror films that inspired it. Today, the LA avant-rap trio have come out with something even more unsettling: A cute song about puppies and Hanukkah, made for the Disney Channel.
Maybe things like this just happen when you’ve got one foot in the noise-rap underground and another in mainstream stardom. Daveed Diggs, the rapper who leads Clipping, is also a star of stage and screen, and he’s down with Disney. Diggs is, of course, one of the stars of Hamilton, both the Lin-Manuel Miranda stage play and the filmed version that went up on Disney Plus this past summer. According to Variety, Hamilton is the most-streamed movie of 2020, which means it’s the pandemic-era version of a blockbuster. Diggs also plays a role in the new Pixar film SOUL, and he’ll voice Sebastian The Crab in the forthcoming Little Mermaid remake. And now Diggs has brought his Clipping bandmates into the Disney fold, to make a Hanukkah song.
Today, Diggs has released “Puppy For Hanukkah,” a song about really wanting to get a puppy for Hanukkah. (Diggs’ mother is Jewish, and he went to Hebrew school as a kid.) The song is credited to Diggs, but he made it with his Clipping bandmates William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. It really sounds like Clipping, while also being a cute kids’ song about holidays and animals. In the video, little kids lip-sync Diggs’ lyrics. In a press release, Diggs says, “I was honored when Disney Channel approached me to come up with a fresh Hanukkah tune and embraced the opportunity to share my love of music and a little piece of my culture.” Check it out for yourself below.
Visions Of Bodies Being Burned is out now on Sub Pop, and it’s pretty different from “Puppy For Hanukkah.”