Through drawing from a variety of genres and musical influences including rock, funk, jazz, blues, and the Latin sounds of his formative years, Kip constructs a cacophony of sonic innovations through the combination of talented artists and his musical ideas. From these aptitudes Kip often compares himself to a film director as he assembles players and materials, for example, combining modern/avant-garde/free jazz figures like Don Pullen and Steve Swallow, Latin jazz players such as Milton Cardona and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, and occasionally rock singers like Sting and, most notably, Jack Bruce. Writer Ishmael Reed finds the perfect medium to express how his music sounds, "Hanrahan has long been known for intensely passionate music that is both tender and hard-driving, with a deep poetic edge."

Along side his own creative works Kip also created the American Clave. Described as "a music company, a record company, an anthology of musics (sequences of angers, passions, sexualities made audible and intangable by music), Kip was helped form this group by the labor of Jack Bruce, Astor Piazolla, Robby Ameen, Horacio El Negro Hernandez, Don Pullen, Silvana DeLuigi, Paul Haines, Milton Cardona, Ishmael Reed, Steve Swallow, Alfredo Triff, Allen Toussaint, Puntilla Orlando Rios, David Murray, Taj Mahal, Sting, Andy Gonzalez, Arto Lindsay, Giovanni Hildalgo, Fernando Saunders, Leo Nocentelli, Benjamin Bratt, Pablo Ziegler, Fernando Suarez Paz, Carmen Lundy, Bobby Womack, Robert Wyatt, Peter Scherer, Lester Bowie, John Tchicai, Mike Cain, Jerry Gonzalez, Xiomara Laugart, Lucy Penebaz, George Cartwright, Elysee Pyronneau, Pedrito Martinez, Olu Dara, Amadito Valdez, Yosvannit Terry, Chocolate Armenteros, Dziga Vertov and many others informed by, but irrevert of expected form cause and intent."

Website: http://www.americanclave.com