Finally, after years apart, the brothers responsible for some of the greatest music of all time have reunited. No, not Oasis, but rather Virginia rappers Clipse and their new album Let God Sort Em Out, entirely produced by Pharrell Williams. Clipse first started releasing music in the late nineties, when the fraternal duo of Terror (the future Pusha T) and Malice released the singles ‘Got Caught Dealin” and ‘The Funeral’. These were intended for their debut album Exclusive Audio Footage, which was fully recorded, but ultimately shelved by their label Elektra after ‘The Funeral’ failed to chart.
Despite this, the duo’s connection to Pharrell Williams ensured they had a spot on his Star Trak label in the early 2000s. Pharrell, one half of the production duo The Neptunes alongside Chad Hugo, played a crucial role in shaping Clipse’s sound and success. They made their first big wave in hip hop with the breakout single ‘Grindin’ and the album Lord Willin’, which stands as one of the defining examples of so-called coke rap, a sub-genre of gangsta rap focusing on dealing cocaine and the accompanying motivations and struggles.
Clipse only got better with the We Got It 4 Cheap series, particularly Vol. 2 which is one of the greatest entries in the mid-2000s golden era of mixtapes. They would cap their legendary run off with 2006’s Hell Hath No Fury, shedding the pop-leaning missteps of Lord Willin’ in favor of a raw, minimalist sound to make a rap album that ranks among the greatest of all time, extensively praised for its futuristic, minimalistic production and witty, quotable verses.
But the momentum wouldn’t last. 2009’s Til the Casket Drops, despite a strong start, would show itself to have a lower lyrical standard than their previous albums and introduce more attempts at pop rap with underwhelming results. ‘All Eyes on Me’, a poppy club track featuring a hook by Keri Hilson, was dubbed “the worst record I ever made” by Pusha in the Pharrell biopic Piece by Piece. The choice to ditch a fully Neptunes-produced album in favour of P. Diddy‘s production team The Hitmen would hurt them, and the album did poorly on the charts.
The duo split up, with Pusha signing to Kanye West‘s G.O.O.D. label and continuing to produce and release coke rap, while Malice changed his name to No Malice and began to head in the direction of Christian hip-hop. Pharrell, essentially the unofficial third member, would fully commit to pop in the 2010s and contribute to chart smashers such as ‘Blurred Lines’ and ‘Happy’. It looked for all intents and purposes that the three men had chosen different paths, and we would never get another Clipse album again.
But then, a decade later, we were given hope. The duo featured on ‘Use This Gospel’ from Kanye’s album Jesus Is King in 2019, and would again appear on Nigo‘s album I Know NIGO! in 2022. With Malice featuring on his brother’s album It’s Almost Dry the same year, it seemed as if a future return was in the works. These suspicions would be confirmed in 2024, when the duo premiered ‘Birds Don’t Sing’ at a Louis Vuitton fashion show, and announced a new album soon after, entirely produced by Pharrell. The buildup to the album would be mired in controversy, as Pusha would feud with Jim Jones, Travis Scott, longtime Clipse and Neptunes enemy Drake and, ironically, the man who originally reformed Clipse, Kanye West.
The album begins with the aforementioned ‘Birds Don’t Sing’, a touching eulogy to the duo’s parents with a great hook from John Legend. It’s evident from this song that both men haven’t lost their touch, especially Malice who has the listener hanging on the edge of his every word. The song is a phenomenal way to open an album, showcasing the introspection that the duo pulled off so well on past highlights including ‘I’m Not You’ and ‘Freedom’.
We then transition into ‘Chains & Whips’, bringing some grimy mixtape energy and an awesome drumless rap-rock and industrial genre-blender of a beat from Pharrell. Kendrick Lamar commits a guest verse, apparently so controversial with its mentions of Drake and Donald Trump that their previous label Def Jam refused to work with Clipse due to its content, leading to a hasty move to Jay-Z‘s label Roc Nation. The lyrics do seem a little tame given the magnitude of what Kendrick has already said about Drake, but this is another great track that again proves Clipse never lost their street edge.
‘P.O.V.’ is another good track featuring a Tyler, the Creator verse, although Pusha’s chorus is a little generic and comes across as uninspired. It’s followed by ‘So Be It’, a track with an Arabic Khaliji-sampling beat and fiery, aggressive verses. There’s a mid-naughties aggressive club vibe to the beat, a sound that Pharrell explored on tracks such as ‘Wamp Wamp’ or ‘Ain’t Cha’ from Hell Hath No Fury. This song would’ve fit right in on that album.
The final verse takes aim at Travis Scott, with lines such as “You cried in front of me / You died in front of me / Calabasas took your bitch and your pride in front of me” and a claim of an embarrassing video in Pusha’s possession, of Travis crying over his breakup with Kylie Jenner. Pusha later revealed that the beef was sparked when Scott barged into a Clipse recording session in Paris, played an excerpt from his album Utopia, then later released the track ‘Meltdown’ with a Drake verse containing a Pharrell diss.
Pusha labelled Travis a “whore” for hopping between rap camps and avoiding allegiance to any side. Houston legend Bun B claimed that Travis would respond to the diss, and he did, in a way, on the Jackboys 2 cut ‘Champain & Vacay’ with the line “I’m dodgin’ TMZ / made a hundred off pushin’ T’s / now my phone on DND”. It’s unclear where the beef will go from here, although it’s hard to imagine that Travis will stand even the remotest of chances of out-rapping Pusha, and is probably best served to ignore him and hope it goes away just like Drake did in 2018.
Lead streaming single ‘Ace Trumpets’ is next on the album, a song in which Malice silences any doubters by completely outdoing Pusha’s childish “pee pee” rhymes with a great verse, proving his pen has only sharpened in his silence. Overall, the song is bearable, but its single status is confusing as it’s far from a highlight of the album. The following track, ‘All Things Considered’, suffers from a terrible autotune Pharrell hook, a baffling decision given The-Dream worked on the outro and is a far better singer. This is the first in a series of weak Pharrell hooks that plague the second half of the album.
We then get the acronym trilogy of ‘M.T.B.T.T.F’ (Mike Tyson Blow to the Face), ‘E.B.I.T.D.A.’ (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) and ‘F.I.C.O.’ (the credit score), a very solid series of tracks, especially ‘F.I.C.O.’ which features a hook from student of the coke rap game Stove God Cooks. ‘Inglorious Bastards’ features a welcome verse from longtime Clipse associate Ab-Liva, and he shows out on a dirty south-esque banger that could have easily been on one of their mixtapes.
The following track ‘So Far Ahead’ has another terrible Pharrell hook in a neo-soul/gospel style, and the verse production unfortunately isn’t enough to salvage it despite an interesting turn to airy wonky-inspired trap. ‘Let God Sort Em Out / Chandeliers’ brings some energy in the album’s closing stretch, starting off with some rage-inspired production before switching to a Nas solo track that sounds much like what he’s been releasing on his own albums in the last few years i.e. very solid and skilful rapping. The only downside: it’s too short. Two and a half minutes can’t do justice to two distinct songs.
Final track ‘By the Grace of God’ comes with yet another weak Pharrell gospel hook which, this time, could have easily been replaced by the dulcet tones of previous feature John Legend, but it at least makes contextual sense, with the duo looking back at their careers and relating their reflections to their relationship with God. Malice predictably sounds more comfortable than Pusha given the subject matter, but both drop solid verses ruminating on their past lives as drug dealers, questioning whether it was truly worth it in the end. It’s reminiscent of Malice’s crushing final verse on ‘I’m Not You’ from Lord Willin’, and it’s clear two decades of lived experience has given both men much more to look back and reflect upon.
Given the duo’s long absence, the expectations were nearly impossible to meet, but all three men (including Pharrell) come impressively close. There’s no coasting here – even the weaker tracks show real heart and grit, with Pharrell clearly pushing himself to experiment behind the boards. The weak spots are Pharrell’s hooks (as is usually the case with Clipse albums), and some of the production can feel slightly corporate for music that is supposedly “culturally inappropriate” as the repeated text-to-speech inserts would have us believe.
This is unmistakably their singular vision, and not an attempt to fit into a pop aesthetic like what plagued their previous full-length. The concise track lengths and Pharrell’s sole production gives the album a cohesion reminiscent of Hell Hath No Fury, and would make a fitting end to their career if this is truly their curtain call. Pusha explained the meaning of the name Clipse on the promo cover of their scrapped first album as “how our music and songs are clips of our lives, and also how we want to eclipse the industry”. With Let God Sort Em Out, Clipse have lived up to their desire – not by playing the industry’s game, but by outlasting it with purpose and conviction.
