Wriggle is an experimental hip-hop album released in 2016 by the rap group Clipping.
Hamilton actor Daveed Diggs and his band Clipping started releasing mix tapes to a minor audience. Clipping released their first EP, appropriately titled Ok so EP. Then, they came out with their first full length album a year later in Midcity. They had one more album before Diggs joined the Hamilton cast as Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette. Since then, he has become more popular.
Daveed’s music career starting with his solo Get Back project. He released an album titled Small Things to a Giant in 2012. Before this, however Diggs was a teacher in his home town of Oakland, California. He taught poetry and even a rapping class. About his time in the classroom, Daveed said, “It was cool, I got to teach rap classes in tandem with the curriculum that was happening anyway.”
Diggs eventually left his teaching job because he felt his heart was not in it. He was busy trying to make music, as well as get auditions for his acting career. He left his native Oakland and moved across country to New York in order to work on Broadway. Quickly, he found a job there. Daveed’s friends Lin-Manuel Miranda started working on Hamilton! An American Musical. He approached Diggs to play Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Diggs thought the musical was just weird enough to actually work. He attended every pre-production reading of the musical, later saying, “Damn if I’m gonna let you see someone else play this role!”
Daveed’s time in Hamilton was long and successful, ending in a Grammy win for the Oakland actor. However, in July of 2016, Daveed left the musical to make music, as well as join the cast of the television show, Blackish.
On June 14, 2016, Daveed’s Clipping released the EP Wriggle as a bridge between their last album Clppng (Released in 2014) and their newest Splendor and Misery. It only contains six songs, and every single one of them is amazing. Daveed works the amazing, quick, flow he showed during his time on Broadway with the lyrics he picked up as a poet.
One of the most interesting things about the album is the production, done by the other two members Jonathan Snipes and William Huston. Just like Diggs, Snipes and Huston are also very experimental when it comes to their music. Most, if not all, of the songs, not just on Wriggle, but all of their albums, have no drum beat. It’s hardly noticeable while listening to it, especially to an untrained ear, but after a couple listens, you can tell.
Daveed Diggs is one of the greatest rappers of our generation. I can’t think of one rapper that can out due his flow or lyrics. He’s in one of the greatest rap groups of all time, who created one of the greatest albums of all time. Yet he is still underappreciated.
