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Don’t Get Gassed:

The Clipse “Classic” Album Wasn’t Good

Despite what’s going on today, Hip-Hop is about being original. Hip-Hop is aboutgoing left when everyone else is going right. So that’s what I’m going to do. When ever you see the “Don’t Get Gassed” logo, you know that I’m going bring you an opinion or some info from an angle that you might not have heard before.

For many months you heard all of the attention and buzz that surrounded the eagerly anticipated 2nd album from Virginia’s own The Clipse. Coming off the success of their last album, Lord Willin’ which featured two smash hits, The Clipse were riding high. Malice and Pusha T’s drug tales told through witty metaphors and punchlines meshed perfectly with the Neptunes earth-shattering production. So when word came in that this duo completed their second album, rap fans couldn’t wait.

However label beef kept pushing their project back further and further. That’s when the hype machine started. You know how it works. People start imagining what the album would sound like except their imaginations run wild. (Man, Pharell probably got a beat better than Grindin’ and you know their rhymes are going to be the best that we’ve ever heard.) Add in some solid mixtape performances and articles from magazines that further spread thoughts on the “potential” dopeness of this album and you’ve got a full blown case of rap frenzy. The album, Hell Hath No Fury was a classic album before anyone even heard it. XXL magazine even gave the album its highest rating.

Unfortunately, hype only takes you so far and then you’ve got to back it up and contrary to popular opinion, this album was weak. There’s a fine line between focusing on a topic and simply having nothing else to talk about. On a twelve track album, to have twelve consecutive tracks about the same exact topic, delivered the same exact way shows a lack of creativity and skill. It’s not as if the Clipse were breaking new ground either; rappers had been talking about selling drugs for the past 15 years. In fact, it wasn’t even different from the content on their first album or subsequent mixtapes. We also learned that without a great Pharell beat, these “wonderful” metaphors and punchlines don’t sound as great. Over weaker production this time around, Malice and Pusha’s 16’s missed the mark. There’s only so many ways you can describe drugs before you repeat yourself over and over and over. It’s not surprising that the only song worth mentioning was the lead single “Mr. Me Too” and that is because the infectious bass line was so dope, Young Joc would have sounded good over it. The featured artists’ performances were even worse and the hooks were boring and predictable.

So what happened since? It’s been a little over a year since Hell Hath No Fury came out and no one is talking about it. No interviews asking them about their album, nothing. It just disappeared from the face of the earth. The last time I checked, classic albums don’t do that. People believed this album was going to be so good that they tricked themselves into thinking this was a fact. However, true greatness stands the test of time and after a few months and several listens, the crowd woke up from its spell and saw its glaring flaws. This whole time we believed that the label was holding back this “classic” because of politics. But after hearing it, it’s quite possible that the label saw it for what it was - a repetitive, unoriginal project with only one good song.

Moral of the story: Before you call an album a classic, it’s a good idea to listen to it first.