After a stacked year for hip-hop the Clipse comeback album stands above all as greatest of the year thus far
After the rush of hip-hop albums hitting the streaming platforms in the last few months, it just goes to show how great of a year for the genre it has been.
Whilst the year isn’t quite finished it seems that the best of the releases are now over.
Amongst all of these phenomenal hip-hop albums one stands out above all.
That is no other than the comeback album from legendary duo Clipse, ‘Let God Sort ‘Em Out’, after a 16 year hiatus, most assumed that we had seen the last of brothers Pusha T and Malice however with their return they hit us with their best album to date.
The project is entirely produced by Neptunes member Pharrell Williams, who also produced all songs from Clipse’s first two albums.
This album has already become such a phenomenon, pushing Clipse back into the modern mainstream, boosting their stats from 600k all the way 6 million monthly listeners in their peak on Spotify.
Their success even warranted a performance at The Vatican—the first rap performance in its history—where they performed the deeply powerful opener to their new project, ‘The Birds Don’t Sing’.
The song discusses how their parents’ death affected them.
With deeply hard hitting bars, it is by far the most emotional song on the track list and one of the best songs on grief to be released in hip-hop ever, and what a beautiful homage to their parents in general.
On top of Pharrell producing every track, the feature list is nothing short of mind blowing, Pusha and Malice really assembled the avengers of Hip-Hop for this, with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, The Creator and Nas all dropping near perfect features.
With being such rap royalty it only makes sense that the biggest artists in the world would want to work with them.
Tyler, The Creator himself has even said that their classic song ‘Mr. Me Too’ off of their sophomore work Hell Hath No Fury is his favourite rap song of all time.
The duo are rapping with so much confidence on this project, rapping slowly and clearly so every word is understandable, nearly every bar having impact, and rhyme schemes that just feel impossible to think up.
The album is riddled with double entendres in nearly every verse, and deep lyrical meanings.
Whilst Pusha T has had quite the more modern time fame with releasing several very highly regarded solo projects from the likes of Daytona and It’s Almost Dry in recent years, Malice for the most part highly out classes his younger brother on the album despite not having released music formally for over a decade.
However both of the rappers either way sound straight out of hell on this project, to quote Malice even ‘this the darkest that I ever been’ which is definitely made clear from track to track.
Despite sounding straight from the underworld there is a grace in the way Clipse rap, with so much style it’s hard to not bang your head at everything they have to say.
They rap about greed and money, dealing drugs when they were younger, the legacy they have left, navigating the music industry and just a whole lot more drugs.
All of that said without even mentioning the production on the album, Pharrell brings his absolute A game to the table on this one.
With a mix of his newer style on tracks like ‘P.O.V’ and the lead single ‘Ace Trumpets’ to his more Virginia Beach early 2000’s era style with ‘E.B.I.T.D.A’ and ‘By The Grace Of God’.
However more so this project has showcased Pharrell’s insane versatility more than anything, every song feeling like it could have been produced by someone completely different.
From the crunchy synths, the classic crate digger drum loops, and absolutely hard hitting melodies throughout.
Let God Sort ‘Em Out is without a doubt the best rap project of the year, with its hard bar after bar, amazing delivery from the 2 MCs and perfectly fitting production for themes and overall feel of the album.
This album will no doubt go down in history as a future classic given enough time.
A masterclass on lyricism and what it means to leave a legacy.
