They worked for a year, dropped Lord Willin, and went on to be the Clipse we know now. In 2001, Clipse were signed by Pharrell-who by then was getting work on No Doubt singles-to his Star Trak Entertainment label, which partnered with Arista to sign the group to a new deal. The album is uneven-the heights are too few, and the production, which is too glossy and not as stripped back as Clipse’s music would be, is still finding its way as much as Pusha and Malice were-but it’s definitely better than a bunch of the major label released rap albums from 1999.Ĭlipse went back to Virginia Beach, and waited for another opportunity to make music. Put “Hold me high, Gucci suit and tie, let my casket reach the sky, so my girl don’t cry” on my tombstone.Įlektra paid for “The Funeral” video-a historical artifact if only because it’s the last time you’d ever see Pusha-T wearing an ill-fitting suit- and pushed the single on their promotional outlets, but when it didn’t make a dent-it didn’t register on the charts, and if wasn’t for YouTube, it’s music video would probably just not exist in any form anymore-Elektra indefinitely shelved Exclusive Audio Footage, and dropped Clipse. From Malice imagining exactly how he’d meet his demise and what people would remember about him at his funeral, to Pusha describing exactly how his casket march would look, complete with a Blue Angel flyover, this is an all-time classic. “The Funeral” is the beginning of the Clipse of proper record: it’s them over a perfect, martial Neptunes beat-someone needs to write an entire doctoral thesis on how Pharrell’s drumline past made him the best producer of drums in rap music history-and small details, journalistic, real-time lyrics imagining their own funeral. After nearing completion of the album in 1998, they set upon the first single from the project: “Got Caught Dealin’.” The song was sent out to radio stations and promo spots via a CD single you can get on Discogs for pretty cheap. So Pusha and Malice and Pharrell and Chad Hugo bunkered down in the studio for the better part of three years, writing and rewriting what they were calling Exclusive Audio Footage. It was the first time a label took a real stab at letting Pharrell helm a project like this after all, it was three years before the Neptunes would even be a guaranteed bankable production bet. The conceit would sound familiar: Clipse would make an album about the unique realities of Virginia, chronicling their lives as drug dealers over an album entirely produced by the Neptunes. In 1996, Pharrell helped Clipse-who at the time, were like a Dirty South version of Mobb Deep, which made more sense than it seems, because both Pusha and Malice spent a lot of time in New York growing up-land a deal at Elektra. He was starting to try to ferry artists to the promised land of commercial success, and one of the first groups he took a risk on was a raw rap group from his home state: Virginia Beach’s Clipse.Ĭlipse, the duo of brothers Malice and Pusha-T, worked in Pharrell’s studio when they weren’t hustling starting in the early ‘90s.
In 1996, Pharrell Williams was just at the beginning of his days as a music production and label kingpin he had some juice from “ Rumpshaker” and he and Chad Hugo were making beats for Blackstreet albums, and refining the sound that eventually became the Neptunes. Sure, Malice might be talking to people who know he’s working on Lord Willin’ and is sick of them bothering him, but those lines are speaking to a what-if of rap history: Clipse’s forever-shelved original debut LP, Exclusive Audio Footage, an album that had two lacklusterly received singles before being cancelled. Those two lines, in Malice’s verse on “Virginia” from Clipse’s landmark debut, Lord Willin’, contain a robust amount of autobiography, without actually seeming like they’re talking about anything other than the album where the verse is happening.
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