Metal Lungies

Let’s take a trip down the history of Pusha T & Malice, the brother duo that make up The Clipse. Being down with The Neptunes since 93′, they recorded their first album around 1998, which would finally see the light of the day as an internet leak dubbed ‘Exclusive Audio Footage‘ around 99’/00’. Their label at the time, Elektra, never released this as a retail album. Even though I was fan of their single ‘The Funeral’, it didn’t catch on, even though in retrospect the song hasn’t dated itself, and sounds superb to this today. But this didn’t strain their relationship with The Neptunes who brought them along on to their Star Trak imprint through Arista (Jive). They kept themselves busy, inclduing appearances on the ‘Training Day‘ soundtrack, and they enjoyed a guest spot on my personal favorite pop remix of Backstreet Boys’ ‘The Call’. Even at Arista/Star Trak things didn’t start to go smoothly for the most part. After a bunch of times being pushed back, only after the mega-monster track ‘Grindin‘ caught on with the mainstream did the album ‘Lord Willin‘ finally get a concrete date to come out, August 22, 2002. It was a success that would go on to get certified platinum. I can’t pick a track on that album that I would skip over, they all range from very solid to classic. By 2003 the brothers were back in the studio working on their follow-up ‘Hell Hath No Fury‘, it was penned to come out December 16, 2003. Shortly after this, Arista dissolved into Jive, and Star Trak went over to Geffen/Interscope sans The Clipse. Jive refused to release The Clipse and kept them on the roster, they continued working with The Neptunes, but the split from Star Trak put the album in limbo. Fast forward to late 2005, the Clipse were given the green light to finally drop their album, but worried that their songs from 2003 weren’t relevant they starting putting together the album from scratch. In early summer of this year the 1st single ‘Mr. Me Too‘ with some direct jabs at their record label came out. Even though the single caught on and was featured as the jam of the week on MTV Jams, I felt that it was getting a one and done type push from the label for them to make some money by quietly releasing the album and ridding themselves of the Clipse afterwards. When I saw them opening up for Ice Cube in mid-May (when they had the energy & material to headline but got dealt about 20 minutes of stage time) the duo announced that the album was scheduled for a late August release. As July was creeping up into August, the album was re-scheduled for a October 31st release. With the 2nd single featuring Slim Thug, ‘Wamp Wamp‘ out, I could finally start to taste the album coming very soon. That taste turned sour as the album has been pushed back intro December, making it, 3 years overdue, what a fucking shame. But there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, as it recently got a perfect XXL rating from..XXL. Hopefully this will force Jive to put out the album, right? right?? Shelving a alleged-classic will make a lot of people pissed (no one more then the brothers themselves). Recently Rolling Stone had a piece on The Clipse, and I truly feel their pain they are suffering through with their label. Read..

Lots of artists hate their record label, but the Clipse really, really, really hate their label. In a recent interview at the Manhattan offices of their, um, label, Jive Records, rappers Malice and Pusha-T did some extreme venting. As our interview with them began, Pusha snatched the recorder, looked around conspiratorially and let it out: “I hate Jive. I hate them motherfuckers. With all my heart and all the passion and my soul I hate these bitches. It’s about the lynching of every staff member up in this motherfucker.”

One sticking point? The release date of the Virginia hip-hop duo’s second album, Hell Hath No Fury, has been pushed back three times (most recently to November 28th of this year). Malice and Pusha-T also complained that Jive doesn’t know how to handle rap records, forcing the duo to hire it’s own publicity and marketing teams. “You could ask anyone in here to give you a marketing plan on Clipse and they could never do it,” says Pusha. “It’s like damn, What do you understand about hip-hop? You ain’t had nobody since Spice 1! You don’t know the fucking formula. Everybody in here’s like 50 years old!
“Just drop us,” continued Pusha, “Leave us the fuck alone so we can go where there’s plenty of people like Clipse.” “Have you ever heard anyone say that they’d be happy to get dropped” said Malice.
Pusha: “Besides fucking Prince?”

Malice: “Besides Prince.”
“And he carved his own face,” said Push, “which I won’t do. I won’t paint on my face. They ain’t going to drive me fucking loony.”

I’ve never wanted rappers to come out on top more than this. And how could you hate on rappers that send out cook aprons out as a promotional item?

out.

as a bonus check out a redonk freestyle, the video for ‘The Funeral’, and the most random Clipse clip you’ll ever see from this years VMA (probably my only highlight of that event):

[Youtube]M9uoIeWMA[/Youtube] [Youtube]i7rIR0tS6Uc[/Youtube] [Youtube]D2hSiqvEZ9o[/Youtube] Sphere: Related Content