Dead Channel Sky

Albums of the Year 2025: #54 Dead Channel Sky fuses hip-hop and cyberpunk into an adventurous album filled with instantly catchy beats and deftly rapped tales of dystopia, technology, Afrofuturism, and beyond. Features guest work by Aesop Rock, Nels Cline, Cartel Madras, Tia Nomore, Bitpanic. On Dead Channel Sky, clipping texture-map the twin histories of hip-hop and cyberpunk onto an alternate present where Rammellzee and Bambaataa are the superheroes of old; where Cybotron and Mantronix are the reigning legends; where Egyptian Lover and Freestyle are debated endlessly, and Ultramag and Public Enemy are the undeniable forefathers; where the lost movements of the 1980s and the 1990s are still happening: rave, trip-hop, hip-house, acid house, drum and bass, big beat-the detritus of a different timeline, the survivors of armed audio warfare. clipping. vocalist Daveed Diggs is a Grammy and Tony award-winner, known for his work in the original cast of Hamilton, Snowpiercer, Black-ish, Blindspotting, The Little Mermaid, and more. Clipping’s Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson are prolific experimental musicians. They scored the acclaimed documentary Room 237, and Snipes made the soundtrack to the horror film Starry Eyes. Both worked with Diggs on the Disney Channel Hanukkah song “Puppy for Hanukkah.”