"Grindin’"— The Clipse

This week, Rob explores the biblical complexities of brotherhood throughout popular song, and uses those musical examples to highlight this eternal dichotomy: Some days when you aren’t Abel, there is always Cain. This sentiment rings glaringly true as he dissects the career of Virginia brothers The Clipse and their massive 2002 hit ‘Grindin’’, arguably the Neptunes finest production moment. Later, Rob is joined by Ringer alum Shea Serrano to explain why Malice and Pusha T’s elegant street poetry transcends the simple ‘coke rap’ designation critics have hastily assigned to their legacy. Host: Rob HarvillaGuest: Shea SerranoProducers: Chris Sutton, Olivia Crerie, and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you had to pick just one album to define the 21st century so far, what would it be? I'm Cole Kushner from Dissect.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  And I'm Charles Holmes from the Midnight Boys. And on Tuesday, July 29th, Cole and I are launching season four of Last Song Standing, but this year, we're mixing things up.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Instead of searching for an artist's greatest song, we're asking an even bigger question. What is the greatest album of the 21st century so far? Listen to Last Song Standing on the Dissect podcast feed or the Dissect YouTube channel, starting Tuesday, July 29th.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the showstopping towering Santa. Oh, I like that one. And his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want, all waiting for you at The Home Depot. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching the game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head,

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• 1:46Speaker 03

  A reading from the Book of Psalms, English Standard Version, Psalm 29. Not all of it, but most of it. "The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders, the Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks..." The cedars of Lebanon, he makes Lebanon to skip like a calf and Syrian, that's a mountain, like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare. And in his temple, all cry glory. Is it wrong of me? Is it sacrilegious of me if sometimes I still think of his voice as the voice of God?

• 2:48Speaker 04

  Kids blew able. Seth knew not why. If the children of Israel was supposed to multiply.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Randy Newman, God's Song. God's Song parentheses, that's why I love mankind. Close parentheses. It's the pronunciation of supposed to there. The way Randy Newman sings supposed to as supposed to, supposed to multiply. That's what really strips the forest bare and makes the deer give birth, in my opinion.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Why must any of the children die? So he asked the Lord, and the Lord said.

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  And in the temple of rock critics who vote in year end polls, all cry glory. Randy Newman first put out God's Song in 1972 on his exalted 1972 album Sail Away. I first got heavy into him, though, via 2003 record of his called The Randy Newman Songbook, Volume One, where he does a bunch of his old hits solo, including this one. Now, if you know Randy Newman solely as the Toy Story guy, then maybe you think the Lord's about to say nice, encouraging, comforting things about mankind on this song. God's Song parentheses, that's why I love mankind. Close parentheses. But if you know literally anything else about Randy Newman, if you know, for example,

• 4:19Speaker 03

  what sort of ship is sailing away on the album on the song Sail Away? If you know any second thing about the you've got a friend in me guy, then you know enough to know that in Randy's opinion, you ain't got a friend in the Lord, per se.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Man means nothing.

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  He means less to me than the lowliest cactus flower or the humblest yucca tree.

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  To me, there are voices that just naturally convey absolute authority, voices that radiate a musical, but also moral and legitimately spiritual authority. And Randy Newman's got one of those voices, even if he does not have a stereotypically booming, powerful, rushing-of-many-waters type voice. Randy's voice may not be able to break the cedars of Lebanon, but he ain't got no problem breaking mankind's balls.

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  Chases round this desert 'cause he thinks that's where I'll be. That's why I love mankind.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Okay, the Lord's about to get super mean with regards to his opinion of mankind. So let's tap in another famous, beloved, authoritative singer who can soften the blow or dramatically painfully intensify the blow, one of those. Let's get Etta James in here to shake the wilderness of Kadesh, shall we?

• 5:56Speaker 05

  I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee, oh, from the squalor and the filth and misery.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Yikes. "I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee," says the Lord to us, to mankind, through the flamethrowing and mountain-leveling medium of Etta James, covering God's Song in 1973, the ecstasy with which Etta James sings the words "squalor" and "filth" and "misery," the graceful malevolence with which Etta James sings "That's Why I Love Mankind." This song is nasty in both the non-Janet Jackson sense and the Janet Jackson sense

• 6:50Speaker 03

  of the word nasty when Etta James sings it. Etta's vocal nastiness combines lethally with Randy's lyrical and philosophical. nastiness. Randy Newman likes to tell the story about what his father thought of the idea of God as an all-powerful, caring, benevolent deity. Randy says that when he was a kid, he and his dad were visiting someone in the hospital and they walked through the children's ward, right? And Randy's dad starts pointing at children in hospital beds and going, "That's God's will over there, and that's God's will over there, and that's God's will over there." That is hilariously grim, and it explains a whole

• 7:30Speaker 03

  hell of a lot about Randy Newman, specifically why Randy Newman would write a song where God says, "I take from you your children," and you say, "How blessed are we?" So yeah, now Randy writes and sings about a God who laughs at us, and Etta twists the knife by actually laughing.

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  How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me, and that's why I love mankind.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  But for all the nastiness, for all the squalor and filth and misery, the most important line in God's song, regardless of who's singing it, is still the first line. Let's see if Etta sings "Sposda."

• 8:19Speaker 05

  Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why. For if the children of Israel were to multiply...

• 8:34Speaker 03

  No, she doesn't. That's too bad. I bet Etta James could have sung the bejesus out of the word "sposda." Cain slew Abel. You hear about this? Are you up on Cain and Abel and Seth? The first three sons of Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel both gave offerings to the Lord, but the Lord liked Abel's offering better and Cain got pissed? I'm paraphrasing. Let's not paraphrase. A reading from the book of Genesis, English Standard Version, chapter four, parts of it. So Cain became very angry and his face was gloomy. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? If you do well, will your face not be cheerful?

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  And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Cain talked to his brother Abel, and it happened that when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" Then he, the Lord, said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  You will be a wanderer and a drifter on the earth." Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is too great to endure." And then Cain whined some more, and God tells everyone else not to kill Cain. And Cain leaves town and resettles in the land of Nod. I'm paraphrasing, but that is accurate. Cain slew Abel, regarded by billions of believers as the first murderer in human history, which would make the book of Genesis the first instance of true crime in human history. That's obnoxious. That feels sacrilegious to say that. I didn't say that. We'll edit that out later. Suffice it to say that Cain and Abel have endured thereafter as an inexhaustibly rich foundational artistic text,

• 10:44Speaker 03

  as an eternal symbol of man's folly and man's propensity for violence and man's, uh, whatever Bob Dylan is on about here.

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  Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row", from his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Remember when "My Chemical Romance" covered this song in 2009 for the soundtrack to the Watchmen movie? I'd forgotten about that. Anyway, here's Bob doing the Cain and Abel part.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Now, the question of what Bob Dylan means by any of that precisely, I will leave to the experts, to the Dylanologists, because those people scare me and I don't want them getting all pissed at me. I got enough problems. But it seems to me that the inclusion of Cain and Abel here on "Desolation Row", or the exclusion of Cain and Abel and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, rather, from all the rest of us making love or expecting rain, it seems to me that Bob Dylan is shrewd enough to realize that if you drop a Cain and Abel reference into your long discursive rock and roll song, it heightens the sense of depth and scope. It provides a literally biblical depth and scope, and it thus makes your song feel more worldly and sophisticated. Hopefully that works with podcasts as well.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Alas, the "My Chemical Romance" cover of "Desolation Row" cuts out some of the verses, including the Cain and Abel one. But here's part of the guitar solo.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Well, I feel patriotic. The 2009 Zack Snyder Watchmen movie would have made a billion dollars and supplanted Jean Delman atop the Sight and Sound All Time Best Movies poll if the weird Watchmen sex scene between Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Jupiter in the Owl Ship been set to My Chemical Romance's cover of Desolation Row instead of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. That's all I'm saying. If you know, you know. Here's Bruce Springsteen singing, "In the Bible, Brother Cain slew Abel, and east of Eden, mama, he was cast." Though you might just have to take my word for it.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Bruce Springsteen, Adam raised a cane from his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town. Is that as aggro, as macho, as screechy as Bruce Springsteen has ever sounded in his life? I will leave that question to the Springsteenologists because I don't want those people pissed at me either. But Bruce highlights another important aspect of the Cain slew Abel situation. We are still being punished for it. We, meaning all mankind. Here, I'll let Bruce explain it. You can understand him perfectly here, right?

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe not. We're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past. Cain killing Abel is not just our inheritance. It's not just what we're all capable of. It's what we're all guilty of. Adam and Eve eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, that's the original sin. But Cain killing Abel, that's the original felony. That's obnoxious. Woo tang.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  The Wu-Tang Clan. Protect Your Neck, 1993. That's the Jizza, AKA The Genius, AKA the one member of the Wu-Tang Clan who put out a full-length record before Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers came out. Shout out Prince Rakim also. That's the Jizza illustrating two other crucial components of the Kane-Sloo-Abel discourse. One, the evil that men do to each other is nothing compared to the evil that record labels do to their own artists, especially rappers. Or even simpler, record labels have for sure killed more careers than Kane killed people. And the other crucial point Jizza illuminates here, lots of cool stuff rhymes with both

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Kane and Abel, including Aunt Mabel and Gum Under the Table. That's super helpful. Wu-Tang again.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  The Wu-Tang Clan again. A Better Tomorrow, the song, not the album, from 1997's Wu-Tang Forever, the album, not the song, by Drake, or the other song by Logic. That's Method Man, adding unstable to the list of cool words that rhyme with Abel. No longer brothers, we unstable. Method Man's voice also radiates absolute musical, moral, spiritual authority. And that goes double for her.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Lauryn Hill, Forgive Them, Father, 1999, Backstabbers Do This. Another big takeaway from Kane-Sloo-Abel, look out. Watch your back. Absolutely. There's another way to approach this, you know?

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Young Jeezy, now just Jeezy, but formerly Young Jeezy. What I do parentheses, just like that, close parentheses, 2011. Another way to approach this is to be like phenomenal Atlanta rapper Jeezy, the snowman, and get two guns, two Desert Eagles, and name them Kane and Abel. Does that make like 100% biblical thematic sense? No, this is my gun named Abel. Ooh, scary. Yeah, but does it sound awesome? Oh, hell yes, it does. I ought to mention that there is, of course, a twin brother rap duo literally named Kane and Abel. The rapper's name is spelled K-A-N-E, whereas the biblical Kane is C-A-I-N. Kane and Abel out of New Orleans.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  They were big on masterpieces, No Limit Records back in the 90s when No Limit released like 40 records a year. And they all sold hundreds of thousands of copies. From their 1999 album, Am I My Brother's Keeper? This song is called, I Am My Brother's Keeper. You got that? Because it took me a second.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Well, they turned it back into a question and now I'm confused again. Also, do you think they argued about which one got to be Kane? Don't answer that. Also, in 1999 Kane and Abel, AKA Daniel and David Garcia, were indicted on federal cocaine trafficking charges. Eventually, they pled guilty to lesser charges, served some prison time, then they got out and made a bunch more records. But isn't that the ultimate? In terms of voices conveying absolute musical, moral, and spiritual authority? As they evoke the timeless foundational human tragedy of Kane and Abel? Don't you ideally want two voices? And don't you ideally want them to be real life brothers? The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

• 19:15Speaker 06

  My grind's about family, never been about fame. Them days I wasn't able, there was always Kane.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  His name is Gene Thornton. He was born in the Bronx but raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia alongside his younger brother, Terrence. Nine words. Them days I wasn't able, there was always Kane. You know what we don't talk about enough the first two words? Them days, the line doesn't work if it's those days or the days I wasn't able. Okay, the line still works, but it's less cool. Them is cooler. Them days I wasn't able, there was always Kane. Kane as in cocaine, right? Right, but just as crucially, it's the brotherly aspect here. The way Kane and able are both pitted against each other, but also leaning on each other.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Them days I wasn't able, meaning the good guy, there was always Kane, meaning the bad guy. And also, them days I wasn't able, meaning the one brother, there was always Kane, meaning the other brother. I keep typing out and then erasing various ridiculous hyperbolic statements. And I'm trying my best sincerely not to overdo it, but I suspect that there is no greater use of nine words in rap history than them days I wasn't able, there was always Kane. And Gene Thornton is known professionally as Malice. For a while, he called himself No Malice, but he's just Malice again now. But to tell you the truth, he still sounded super malicious even when he was No Malice. Gene's younger brother, Terrence Thornton, is known professionally as Pusha T.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  And Pusha T and Malice are known professionally as the Clips. Clips as in eclipse. Everyone knows that Kane slew Abel. What the Clips presupposes is, maybe he didn't?

• 21:13Speaker 03

  I've done that before, right? I've done the Royal Tenenbaums, Eli Cash, what this book presupposes is thing before. I'm not going to look up when I did that before because let me find out I've done that like five times before. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 29th episode of 60 Songs That Explained the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. And this week we are discussing Grindin' by the Virginia Beach rap duo Clips from their 2002 debut album, Lord Willin'. I'm supposed to do an ad break here.

• 21:46Speaker 02

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• 22:09Speaker 03

  That was the third time I've done the Eli Cash Royal Tenenbaums, what if he didn't thing on this program. I searched Google Docs for the word presupposes. The other two episodes where I did it, the Spice Girls and Oasis, speaking of brothers who've managed at press time not to kill each other. So only three Eli Cash references so far. That's better than five. That's fine. It's not great, but it's fine. They hail from Virginia Beach, Virginia. They masterfully combined minimalism, a swaggering sonic austerity, a spareness, a gravitas, a sense that empty space, that silence can hit just as hard as any series of fancy noises or any perfect string of nine words.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  They masterfully combined that minimalism with a maximalist approach to charisma. They are ludicrously charming humans, steeped in black musical history, and they are also kinda maybe, if we're lucky, the future of rap. Or at least I thought so in the early 2000s because I loved their debut album very, very much.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  And their name is N E R D, which spells nerd, from their debut album released in 2001 and called In Search Of... This is N E R D with a song called Lap Dance. On lead vocals, we got Pharrell Williams, producer, rapper, mastermind, impresario, and fashion visionary. Pharrell Williams, who is currently the men's creative director for Louis Vuitton, which likely means a great deal to you, if it means anything to you. Pharrell Williams, who is fond of "the Gandalf hat and the weird-ass clothes", as he himself put it once while rapping. Now, if you know Pharrell solely as the despicable me guy, the happy guy, then maybe you think Pharrell's not about to talk about guns,

• 24:07Speaker 03

  but he's gonna. It sounds a little different when Jeezy does it, don't it?

• 24:24Speaker 03

  This is the second version, the official version of the N E R D In Search Of record, the live band version, featuring the Minneapolis rock band Spy Mob, one word. The Spy Mob version is vastly superior on account of the fact that this is the one I owned on CD, "A Bird in the Hand" and so forth. The live drums are fantastic also.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  That's Vita singing the hook there, V I T A. Vita, the rapper, actress, and Murder Inc. associate. The original electronic drum machine-heavy version of In Search Of came out in Europe, I guess. Europe, stay out of this, Europe. I'm sure that at some point I sought out and listened to the original European inferior In Search Of, but let's do that again real quick, just in case I've never actually done that at all.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Nah, that's nowhere near as good. Europe. So, in 1996, young Virginia Beach visionaries Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, young associates of super producer and New Jack Swing architect Teddy Riley. Pharrell and Chad make their pop music debut as superstar production duo The Neptunes. And The Neptunes start out working on hits for SWV, Mace, Old Dirty Bastard, Khaleesi, Mystical, Jay-Z, etc. 2001 is the first true monster Neptunes year, right? Nelly's hot in here, Usher's "You Don't Have to Call," Britney's "I'm a Slave for You." You know what else came out in 2001? You know my all-time favorite Neptunes production? You guessed it.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  I get this chorus stuck in my head once a month, and I have a fantastic time, truly. "Take You Home" by Lil Bow Wow, though it's just Bow Wow now. Best song of 2001. That's not true. Bow Wow makes a Cain and Abel reference in this song, actually. That's not true either. What I love about getting "Take You Home" stuck in my head is the perfect harmony between the women here going, "Lil Bow Wow, you just don't know", etc., and the bass going, "Burn it, burn it." The whole song is basically just, "Burn it, burn it," with some modest tambourine and cowbell type action. And this is the essence of the greatness of the Neptune sound to me. It is their masterfully full-to-bursting

• 27:13Speaker 03

  use of empty space. It is simplicity blown up to absurdly gargantuan proportions. And by 2001, The Neptunes have got enough juice to also release "In Search of," the debut album from their rap-ish, rock-ish, funk-ish side project N-E-R-D, consisting officially of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley. That's Shay Haley on the "In Search of" album cover. He's sitting on a couch, holding a PlayStation controller, PlayStation One, wearing white socks with slides. It's a remarkably beguiling album cover.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Somehow, and I love this record very much to this day, even if this record does not contain necessarily the best rapping you're ever gonna hear in your whole life. I'll play you the worst line on this record, which occurs on the song Lap Dance, actually. It is rapped by a gentleman named Lee Harvey, as in the presidential assassin. No offense to Lee Harvey, the rapper, but like you decide how much offense to take to this.

• 28:16Speaker 07

  Chicks nicknamed me pilot, they get high off my dick. I take them to my home. They call it the cockpit. Time to take off their pennies, they drop quick. Now that's first class, fucking that's fly shit.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  I gotta say that I never fully registered chicks nicknamed me pilot, they get high off my dick, because I was too busy dealing with, I take them to my home, they call it the cockpit. Yeesh. I play that for you now because, well, I play that for you because it illustrates a crucial but under discussed point in rap music discourse, which is rapping is hard. We don't talk enough about how hard rapping is. The greatest rappers make rapping look easy, but it's not. The cockpit line was much funnier to me when I was 23. I'll say that. Maybe that's why no one likes you when you're 23. You know what still is funny to me now as

• 29:10Speaker 03

  when I was 23? This is another song on the first NERD album called Tape You, as in videotape you amorously. The deployment of the word yeah here is extremely permanently funny to me.

• 29:25Speaker 07

  I just wanna take you all night. Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Now, the cynical amongst you will insist that NERD couldn't think of a fourth line for this chorus that only consists of eight words total, and they figured they had to put something on that fourth line, so they just cynically lazily decided on yeah. And I will retort that the yeah there is absolutely necessary and weirdly endearing.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  In its silliness and its precisely articulated inarticulation. One thing I love about N E R D songs and Neptunes produce songs broadly is there's this general vibe of like, I'm serious about this, by the way, it sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not joking, unless you're mad, in which case I'm just joking, but otherwise, yeah. The most famous example of this super jovial joking, not joking mentality, of course, being the line in Nelly's Hot in Here about his friend with a pole in the basement.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Phenomenal comic timing there, from Nelly, obviously, but expertly facilitated by the Neptunes. Meanwhile, in less successful Neptune's production news, the first Clips album almost comes out in 1999, but then doesn't.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  This song is called "The Funeral." It is the debut single from The Clips, and this song is officially released. There's a video and everything, but the same cannot be said for the rest of The Clips' would be debut album, set for 1999 and called Exclusive Audio Footage. That's a clunky album title, but not releasing the album at all is an overreaction. On this song, "The Funeral," Malice and his younger brother Pusha T. Pusha T was then going by the name Terror, spelled T E R R A R. And yeah, Pusha T is a better rapper name. On this song, the two brothers in The Clips describe their funerals. They make funeral arrangements.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  They speculate as to how exactly they were murdered. And this ice coldness, this bone chilling grimness clashes splendidly with the bright, blaring maximalist Neptune's hook, the simple and absurdly gargantuan horn loop. Also, Malice describes how great he looks up in heaven.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Brand new physical frame with no flaws. On my throne that's guarded by angels with four fours. Even here in Clips prehistory, pretty much, Malice still raps like every word is cast in bronze, cast in marble, cast in adamantium. The second half of that is even more important. Terror retaliate, show them how real it be. A split second for you blazed, they probably thought you was me. Your brother is, ideally, the person who avenges your death. Ideally, your brother avenges your death while looking enough like you that people think it's actually you back from the dead. No offense to Terror as a rap name, but do you mind if I just start calling him Pusha T in advance?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  No matter how foul, my burial open casket. So they can see my clusters and my diamonds smiling. Gruesome opulence. That is Pusha T's eternal domain. And then he starts talking to his brother Malice from beyond the grave. Just to reiterate, ostensibly, this is the Clips' debut single. Not enough people heard this song in real time, but everyone who did hear this had to be like, these dudes are far out. Clips' career starts with a funeral, just like Sleepless in Seattle.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Don't let Pusha T's lethal barrage of syllables at the end there. Remember this nemesis, make his family reminisce, entirely distract you from the truly far out intensity of, "Now you'll write for both of us. I'll channel thoughts through your soul." By way of introduction, on their debut single, the clips describe themselves in death, in grueling detail, just to underscore immediately that the bond between these two brothers will transcend death if necessary. Anyway, the funeral single flops and Electro Records shelves the album and drops the clips. But these two brothers will transcend that bullshit as well.

• 34:48Speaker 08

  By the infiltrate, you feeling more than the norm. The barrage of hollows hit hard like brick storms, even in the pristine chapel of the Sistine, I'm still prone to leave you glistening.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  And I cannot condone this decision by Electro Records to essentially wipe out The Clips' whole debut album, but I do grudgingly admire their bravery, their foolhardy willingness to piss that guy off. Even in the pristine chapel of the Sistine, "I'm still prone to leave you glistening." More gruesome opulence from Pusha T. This song is called "Breakfast in Cairo." I will not try to convince you that the exclusive audio footage album is a hidden classic. It leaked on the internet at the time and it briefly showed up on streaming services in 2022. But if you want to hear this record now, either buy a CD on Discogs.com for $80 or, you know, YouTube.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  But I will say that overcoming record label adversity is a huge part of The Clips' experience. So they might as well start now. Put exclusive audio footage in the botched debut album Hall of Fame alongside 50 Cent's "Power of the Dollar," 50 Cent's pre-shot nine times shelved 1999 debut album, which you can buy on CD on Discogs.com for $250. Don't do that. Meanwhile, Pusha T is threatening to kill someone in the Sistine Chapel and stagger away calm, withdrawn and whistling.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Okay, we can start breathing again. Great. Why don't we try this again? This whole Clips debut album thing. But first, a brief uncomfortable conversation with CNN.

• 36:43Speaker 09

  Now, how did it work? What was the business? What was your job? This was all, uh, this was all rock cocaine, right? This was all crack?

• 36:50Speaker 06

  Hold on, I'm not comfortable with all of that.

• 36:51Speaker 09

  No?

• 36:53Speaker 03

  This is Malice talking to CNN in 2014 for a 15-minute sort of micro documentary on the Clips. Malice in this moment is officially known as No Malice, but never mind that now. We are standing in the parking lot of an apartment complex near the Thornton Family Childhood Home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And the CNN guy is trying to get Malice to describe in detail how Malice used to sell drugs here. It's not going great, this conversation, but I do want to point out the perfect rapper cadence with which Malice is about to say, "You're right, but this is CNN."

• 37:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm not.

• 37:33Speaker 09

  Why not? You, you talk about it, you, you-

• 37:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, but-

• 37:37Speaker 09

  It's part of your testimony, right?

• 37:38Speaker 06

  You know, you're, you're absolutely right. Hold on, give me a second, because I'm getting flustered.

• 37:41Speaker 09

  Okay, that's cool.

• 37:42Speaker 06

  Right now.

• 37:44Speaker 09

  I mean, why dance around it?

• 37:46Speaker 06

  You're right, but this is CNN.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  That's a superstar rapper, right there. You know it just from the way he says, "You're right, but this is CNN." This CNN micro documentary is called Brothers Keeper. Real quick, if you do a cover story, or a TV news report, or whatever on the Clips, and your headline, your title, isn't "My Brother's Keeper", what the fuck are you doing? That's the headline. Don't overthink it. Yes, everyone uses that headline for Clips stuff, because that's the headline. Obviously, it's a biblical reference, dude. It's perfect. CNN Clips feature in 2014, Brothers Keeper. Vibe Clips digital cover story in 2013, My Brother's Keeper. Complex- Clips cover story in 2025, My Brother's Keeper.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Are there other examples from other publications in other years? Yeah, probably. I'm busy right now. But so then Malice relents and he talks just a little bit with CNN about how he used to sell drugs. But he also talks about what it's like to be a superstar rapper who raps a lot about how he used to sell drugs.

• 38:53Speaker 06

  I feel like hip hop personally is the only genre that eats its babies. Now, you can take a white kid or the white generation. They're enjoying hip hop, eating it up and paying for it and loving it. But they're not killing each other.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  And let's just keep this in mind going forward. The eternal, the universal tension in hip hop between generally the genre's biggest artists and generally the genre's target audience. The racial tension between usually black artists describing experiences and environments unfamiliar to a goodly percentage of their partly white audience. The Clips rap a lot about selling drugs, like a lot, like somewhere between 75 and 90% of the time. Whereas a great deal of The Clips' audience does not and has not sold drugs. There is, therefore, for many of us, an inherent voyeurism, a tourism aspect to The Clips.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  And that is a little discomforting, but that discomfort can be productive. To quote a Pusha T song that I love so much that I already quoted it, actually. If you know, you know. And if you don't, you don't. And if you don't know, they know you don't know. Just keep that in mind. The actual official first Clips album is released in 2002 and is called Lord Willen.

• 40:19Speaker 10

  I speak with corrupted tongue. Recognize the underworld since I was young. Back in 84 when I saw Crockett and Tubbs as the law. His eyes got big when they televised that raw.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  I speak with corrupted tongue. Raps Pusha T. 12 seconds into the first official Clips album, which debuts at number four on the Billboard album chart, beaten out only by, in descending chart order, Eminem, Nelly and Avril Lavigne. These eyes got big when they televised that raw. This song is called Intro. It lasts only two minutes, but we get a lot accomplished in that two minutes. Most rap songs called Intro do not provide this much useful information. This album, Lord Will and Begins, with Pusha T and Malice, explaining what compelled them to start selling drugs. Crockett and Tubbs, for those of you not born in the 20th century,

• 41:15Speaker 03

  they're the cops from Miami Vice. Not the movie where Colin Farrell says I'm a fiend for Mojitos, the 80s TV show. Miami Vice is apparently a huge part of what compelled Clips to start selling drugs.

• 41:30Speaker 10

  My mama should have seen it coming. Me running up and down the stairs too quick, humming Miami Vice's theme music. Calderon made me colder. I see the villain's impact now that I'm older.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Calderon is a bad guy from Miami Vice. I see the villain's impact now that I'm older, raps Pusha T. And maybe what he means is now that I'm older, I realize I don't actually want to be the bad guy. But then again, maybe he doesn't mean that. Meanwhile, a monster opening line from Malice here.

• 42:03Speaker 10

  Even went by the book at first, until I realized nine to five wouldn't quench my thirst. So I start my mission, leave my residence. Mama knew that a child like me had better sins.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  I even went by the book at first, until I realized nine to five wouldn't quench my thirst. Raps Malice, evoking his mother as well. Their mother, Pusha T and Malice's parents, their mother Mildred Thornton and their father, Gene Elliott Thornton, Sr. Clips' parents loom over the Clips catalog, lovingly if somewhat disapprovingly. Though then again, maybe all that villain talk is really a family inheritance.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  "I chef'd that soft white and pumped from her crib" is one of those effortless cocaine-based double entendre clips rhymes that you start to take for granted after a while because you get a new one every 10 seconds. And here Malice evokes his grandmother as well. Blame her, maybe, for how clips turned out. "You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past." That's from the Bible. Actually, that's from Bruce Springsteen. Same thing, really.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  This song is called "Young Boy." A goodly amount of Lord Willen is dedicated to sketching out this family tradition, to placing Malice and Pusha T in a proud lineage of coke rappers, of lovable anti-heroes with hearts of gold and wrists of ice. And they are aided in this quest immensely by the Tape You Guy.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  It is truly wild to hear Pharrell Williams in full super charismatic goofball falsetto mode, dropping F-bombs on clips hooks, indistinguishable from the hooks in Despicable Me movies. I love it. Randy Newman approves. "It's time to introduce my kids to the clips." No, it isn't. Lord Willen is produced entirely by the Neptunes, and personally, I'm all for it.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  I love the little dorky, perfect toy whistle there so much. That song's called "Let's Talk About It." We got Jermaine Dupri, Atlanta producer, rapper, mastermind, impresario Jermaine Dupri, helping out on that one. The opulence. Sometimes gruesome opulence, sometimes just regular opulence. The opulence is unrelenting on "Lord Willin'." A substantial percentage of this record is just Malice and Pusha T pointing to their cars, their jewels, their watches, their guns, their clothes, their balconies. And the whole time, they're going, "That's God's will over there, and that's God's will over there, and that's God's will over there."

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Malice is a glass-bottom speedboat, also. Now feels like a good time to say that it had never fully registered for me that the "Lord Willin' album" cover is Pusha T and Malice riding in a convertible with Jesus in the backseat. Black Jesus, I believe. Black Jesus, complete with a crown of thorns, though Jesus seems pretty chill about it. It is God's will that Clips get a convertible, and it is also God's will that they use it to give Jesus a lift. Don't let the opulence distract you from the violence, though, even if the violence is often very, very funny.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  That song is called "Ego," and Pusha T's got one of those, too, along with myriad firearms. All right, man, enough screwing around. Let me ask you something. Is the Pharrell intro to the Clip song grinding annoying? Is Pharrell's intro here superfluous or absolutely gloriously world-historically necessary?

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Because generally, historically, the Pharrell intro, it hasn't annoyed me, but despite the cool, slick Rick echo, I did not ever think it was necessary. No. Five adverbs in seven words right there, by the way. That's ridiculous. I tried to be all sneaky and break it up with a song clip, but that only made it more noticeable. No, the seismic importance of Pharrell's intro to grindin' was not made apparent to me until last week, when I saw Clips do this song live. I saw Clips live last week in Yellow Springs, Ohio, at a tiny comedy club owned by Dave Chappelle. I'm not bragging about this. I was visibly, painfully, hopelessly not cool enough to actually be at this show. That's four more

• 47:51Speaker 03

  adverbs. It was one of those shows where they make you lock up your phone in a little pouch so you can't record or even write down anything. And I almost didn't get in because I brought a library book with me to read while I was in line. You see what I mean about being painfully uncool? And security was like, "Sorry, you can't bring in a library book." And I was like, "What?" And they were like, "You could meet somebody inside who gives you a pencil and then take notes in the library book." And I was like, "Nobody in there wants to talk to me. And furthermore, I would never write in a library book." And then I had to coat check my fucking hoodie with a library book crammed into one of the pockets. And then they let me in and I enjoyed a bunch of songs about selling cocaine. Everyone

• 48:33Speaker 03

  in the room with the Clips, everyone watching the Clips do grindin' live, everyone recited the Pharrell intro. That's when I realized how important that part is. When everyone joined Pharrell, Pharrell wasn't physically there, alas, but I was there. Everyone joined Pharrell. Everyone went, "The world is about to feel something that they never felt before." And it was a lovely moment. Truly, because true greatness does not always need to announce itself, but sometimes it does. Grinding is gonna be a big hit, but not like a chart topping hit. It peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, which is offensive if you want the truth.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  And clips are going to be big stars, but not industry coddled superstars. Lots of label bullshit, lots of annoying delays, lots of moved release dates, lots of logistical chaos in the clips' future and in Eclipse fans' future. Let them have this. Let Pharrell and let the clips announce the greatness of grinding before the greatness of grinding actually technically arrives.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  But then again, the greatness of grinding arrived immediately, because the first truly great element of grinding is just the beat. The simple, concussive, absurdly gargantuan drumbeat, like every kid and every lunch from America banging on every lunch table simultaneously. The miles, the planets, the galaxies of empty space packed into the beat to grind in. It's tempting to say that anybody, any rapper could have had a huge hit with a beat this fantastic, but I think the opposite is true. This beat is so huge and expansive and fantastic that it would overwhelm, it would annihilate most rappers, even good ones, even great ones.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  And so it takes push a T there and it takes malice here to combine absolute authority with absolute calm to rap so precisely, so forcefully. "The two voices of the Lord make the deer give birth and strip the forests bare." And in Dave Chappelle's Comedy Club, all cry glory.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  I love Malice's twenties spinning like windmills. It's the specificity of The Clips as rappers, as world-class describers of wealth, of power, of excellence, of godliness. It is likewise tempting to lament that Clips peak with "Grindin", that this song is so immense and so immortal that any career that starts with this song is an inevitable letdown thereafter. The second real Clips album, Hell Hath No Fury, comes out four years later, in 2006, but only after myriad delays and general record industry calamity. So many cold killer labels and so much money stuck to so much gum under the table.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  In the meantime, The Clips join up with a couple rappers from Philadelphia, form the Re-Up Gang, and put out three volumes of the "We Got It For Cheap" mixtape series, which are still eternally beloved records by the most online rap fan you know personally. Maybe that's what makes The Clips post-Grindin not a letdown: the underdog status. The sense that every new Clips record is a fight, a grind, a small miracle. And as well-known as The Clips might be, they will also always be critical darlings and best-kept secrets. They are Goliaths disguised as Davids. There is nowhere to go but down after grinding, and so The Clips stayed mainstream, but also kinda, sorta, went underground.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Consider my raw demeanor, the icing on the cake, raps Malice, and we do. We do. The Clips put out their third album called Till the Casket Drops in 2009, and Hell Hath No Fury is better, but this one's still pretty good. But then another calamity befalls The Clips and befalls Clips fans. In 2012, Malice renames himself No Malice and refuses to rap about cocaine or violence and so forth anymore, dedicating his music instead to profanity-free religious themes. He announces this via Twitter with a video of himself dressed in a suit, looking down at himself, dead in a coffin, wearing a hoodie. And he added a bunch of Bible verses to this announcement, too.

• 53:33Speaker 03

  A very quick reading from Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 31, English Standard Version. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice." And this was not a renunciation of all The Clips had accomplished, and it was certainly not a renunciation of his brother, but it was an abandonment of sorts. That's why he's No Malice in the CNN thing. That's why he's explaining to CNN that hip hop eats its babies. Also, at one point, the CNN guy's driving with Pusha T, and the CNN guy goes, "He picked Jesus over you." And Pusha T goes, "Yes, he did. Yes, he did." Hey, you know what other famous musical icon found religion

• 54:15Speaker 03

  and radically altered their previous, mostly secular, career? Mace. Yes, okay, Mace. Him too. I meant this guy.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  I meant Bob Dylan. That's a song called "Every Grain of Sand" from 1981 in Bob Dylan's famously polarizing and fascinating Christian period. Did Bob get even more nasal when he found God? He kinda did. "Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break." Bob's born again era would not last terribly long, but he's carried a faint, profound echo of born again era with him thereafter. And so it is with Malice. Who is Malice again? And the Clips are an active rap group again. And the 2025 Clips album, "Let God Sort 'Em Out", is by far my favorite album of the year thus far. And yes, it does include a song called MTBTTF,

• 55:27Speaker 03

  which stands for Mike Tyson Blow to the Face. That's a cocaine reference, probably. But this record also starts with a song called "The Birds Don't Sing", that is a tremendously sad and beautiful and vulnerable ode to Pusha T's and Malice's parents, who are both gone now. "Now you'll write for both of us. I'll channel thoughts through your soul." Grinding is the beginning, the true beginning, of one of the wildest and greatest and most chaotic careers in rap music history. But this song is also great enough to carry with it a note of finality. One matter, anyway, is settled. The Thornton Brothers are among the best to ever do it.

• 56:10Speaker 06

  This is the result of my vision. React with precision. But God only knows my intention. But selling dope is a religion. The hammer's in position. I can show the difference.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Sorry, I couldn't help myself. That's Malice on the Mike Tyson Blow to the Face song. "This is the result of my vision. React with precision. But God only knows my intention. But selling dope is a religion." The Clips are among the best gospel rappers to ever do it also, because they've shown us that there are so many gospels from which to read.

• 56:47Speaker 11

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• 57:18Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Introducing new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with 100 mile an hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  We are shocked and delighted to be joined once again by our true best friend Shay Serrano, Ringer alumnus, bestselling author, superstar podcaster, TV creator guy, VHS movie collector, etc. His next book is called Expensive Basketball, and you can preorder it right now. Thank God you're here, Shay. Thank you for being here.

• 58:05Speaker 12

  I'm very excited to be here, Rob. It's been too long. That's how long it's been.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  It's been way too long. I agree with you. Speaking of too long ago, I believe it was 2015 you published The Rap Yearbook.

• 58:17Speaker 12

  Oh, man.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  10 years. That's wild.

• 58:20Speaker 12

  10.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  Picking, of course, one rap song for every year, the best and most important song of the year. And I don't want to spoil the whole book, but you picked "Grindin'" by The Clips for 2002. Can you please tell the people why "Grindin'" is the most important rap song of the year 2002?

• 58:38Speaker 12

  Whenever you're working on a project like that, you want to look for stuff like tent pole moments, flag planting moments, moments where something shifted, right? So, you know, a very easy example is something like "Nothing But A G Thing." Prior to that, most of the drug-related rap had to do with crack because it was a reflection of what was happening in America at the time, in the late 80s and early 90s. Crack was sort of tearing through everything. And then Dr. Dre shows up and all of a sudden, oh, we're not doing crack anymore. Now we're doing weed. And it's not this like caustic, violent thing. It's like a party drug and it's fun and we're at the barbecue and we're playing volleyball and it's great. Right?

• 59:22Speaker 12

  So you're looking for songs that do something like that as you're making your way through the history of rap. And when Clip shows up with Grindin' in 2002, produced by Pharrell, it number one sounded like nothing had ever sounded before. Rap was rap was very much in that moment owned by the South. And then here comes this new, this new group, this new sound. They had had stuff before, but this was like their moment when they came out of nowhere and they're like, oh, we rap's gonna sound like this for a little while now. This is a thing you're going to have to consider forever. And so if a group shows up and they can do something like that, then you go, okay, this is a very important moment. There was no other song that did that that year. And that's why.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. The other thing I really like about the Grindin' chapter is you point out that The Wire premiered in 2002, right? The HBO show about the drug trade in Baltimore, one of the best TV shows ever made. Like, is 2002 the peak year for pop culture glorifying drug dealers? Or does 1983 still win because the Scarface movie came out in 1983?

• 1:00:28Speaker 12

  It's gonna be hard to ever top Scarface.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:32Speaker 12

  Because all of the stuff that comes after that is influenced by that. You know what I mean? If we, to take a, to take another rap example, there was gangster rap before Tupac showed up, but after Tupac showed up. He was like, this is what it looks like now. And this is, this is what that persona is and that image is where this now, right? Scarface is that for any of the pop culture drug stuff? Like, that's the first thing you go to. I don't know that anybody will ever be able to wrestle the crown away from, from Latino Al Pacino, which is fucking awesome. It's great.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  He is one of one. Yes. I love your description in the book also of the grind and beat. Like you say, you said, it sounded like someone was beating on a garage door, which connected it to the past, but it also sounded like someone was trying to make a phone call from outer space, which connected it to the future. Uh, does grinding still kind of sound like the future to you now?

• 1:01:29Speaker 12

  It does. That whole pocket of music that came out around then, uh, the whole like Virginia scene, it all still sounds like it's from the future. We haven't gotten there. We haven't gotten there yet. Yeah. Missy Elliott, you go listen to, to Super Duper Fly and it's like, we're still 25 years behind, even though it came out 30 years ago or whatever, 27 years ago. It, it feels like the future. And I think it's always going to, to feel like that in the same way that The Matrix will always feel like the internet as a movie. It just like, it, it like latched on it defined what that sound was. And you go, okay, well, this will always be the flying cars and the, and the teleportation devices of, of rap music. It's,

• 1:02:14Speaker 12

  it's incredible to listen to because as you mentioned, we're approaching the 25 years that this song has been out and it's still a quarter of a century ago it came out and it's still feels like we haven't caught up to it. And it's, it's incredible.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Is grinding the best, the single best Neptune's beat of all time, Jay?

• 1:02:36Speaker 12

  Oh, I, I think, yeah, I think it's the first, it's the first one anyone is going to say, let's go with that. Let's go with, now this is a silly one. Remember Rockstar?

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. The, the N E R D song. Oh, I love Rockstar. Absolutely.

• 1:02:51Speaker 12

  Let's go with, but yeah, uh, grinding, grinding is the, is the number one. Here's, here's the first thing they're going to say after my name type of,

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:00Speaker 12

  type of performance or creation.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  You also point out in the book, and I think this is important, that Clips's former manager, Anthony Gonzalez, was arrested in 2009 for allegedly masterminding like a $20 million drug ring and he did 30 years in prison. Like, is it important when you listen to the clips that you know that all of this is possibly real, or at least based on real events? Like, do you think of this music as fiction or like distinctly nonfiction?

• 1:03:30Speaker 12

  I don't think it's important in that if it were fake, or if they were lying about any of the pieces, or are lying about any of the pieces, that it in any way would make it feel any less artistic.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:43Speaker 12

  It wouldn't affect that at all. Lying doesn't, lying, after Rick Ross showed up in 2006.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  He did kind of kill the concept of lying being bad.

• 1:03:53Speaker 12

  Yeah, nobody cared anymore. It just became how, how cool can you sound when you say it? Right?

• 1:03:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:59Speaker 12

  And so, and so, separate of anything else, the clips, Pusha T and Malice, they all, they have that. They sound cool when they say.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  They do.

• 1:04:07Speaker 12

  Anything at all.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  They really do.

• 1:04:09Speaker 12

  They could talk about anything at all and it sounds like the coolest thing you've ever heard. It's an addition that, that there's a piece of it that makes you go like, are they telling, they might, are they, are they telling the truth right now? You know what I mean? It's additive, but it's not necessarily important when you're listening to it anyway.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  Right. No, I know what you mean. You also, of course, hosted, co-hosted the No Skips podcast for The Ringer, you know, where each episode was about a No Skips album and you did Lord Will and you did the Clips record. I, I love the category, super lying, right? Where it's like the one lie, like, does the concept of super lying apply to the clips at all?

• 1:04:47Speaker 12

  Uh, no, because again, if they do tell a lie.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:04:51Speaker 12

  If Pusha T tells a lie, it just sounds, it sounds so cool that you're like, I'm, I'm happy that you're lying to me right now. Great. Thank you.

• 1:04:59Speaker 03

  I'm honored. I'm honored that you were deceiving me. Absolutely. I did. Does the clips work if they're not brothers? Like, should there be more brother duos in rap music? Or were the clips are the clips so great that we should quit while we're ahead? And no one, we should, there should be no more brother duos after the clips? Cause they sort of mastered it.

• 1:05:22Speaker 12

  I think the answer for this is the same as the, the lying thing. It doesn't affect the art at all. It's like Bun B and Pimp C being lifelong best friends. And you're like, well, that makes sense. It makes sense that, that they play off of each other the way that they do. When, when Pusha T and Malice are rapping on any song, pick any song they've ever put out from any album they've ever put out over the past two and a half decades. Right? Pick any one that you want. There's never a moment when it feels like one of them is in the way of the other one.

• 1:05:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:05:53Speaker 12

  And that's a byproduct of growing up together, being around each other for all of those hours and days and months and years. So it's additive in that way. But again, I don't think it's necessarily, they would be worse if they weren't brothers or they would be less cool, but it is cool that they are.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  It's very cool that they are. Are you a Malice guy or a Pusha T guy? Or is this not the kind of group where you have to pick one?

• 1:06:17Speaker 12

  I think you always have to pick one. I think always.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  That's a good rule. Okay.

• 1:06:22Speaker 12

  It's a lie to be like, oh, they're equally this. And nobody is ever equally the same, even if it's a fraction of an amount.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Speaker 12

  Sometimes a guy is better than the other guy on a particular song or on a particular album or whatever. So it just depends on, on what you happen to be feeling in the moment. When Lord Willen came out, I was like, Pusha T is my fucking dude. That's my guy. Everything he's saying in here, every, every line he's writing, what an incredible writer he is, I'm in. And again, this is not like 70, 30. This is like 50.2 versus 49.8, right? We're right here that we're battling, we're battling in the, in the fucking F1, tenths of a second, 100 meters at the, at the Olympics. Like that's where we are right now. Noah Lyles winning with a lean at the finish line.

• 1:07:17Speaker 12

  Right, then you go to hell hath no fury and it's like, oh Malice, this is my Malice album.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:22Speaker 12

  It bounces back and forth. This latest one, Let God Sort 'Em Out, which I think, Rob, I think this, I think it has a chance to be the best Clips album that we've ever gotten.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  I know what you mean.

• 1:07:35Speaker 12

  Lord Willin' is still in first place.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:37Speaker 12

  But Let God Sort 'Em Out is creeping up behind it.

• 1:07:41Speaker 03

  It's fantastic.

• 1:07:41Speaker 12

  You know what I mean?

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  I'm trying to filter out recency bias, but I agree with you completely. I love this record so much.

• 1:07:47Speaker 12

  We need some time with it. I need, ask me again in five years and I'll have like a, like a full, honest answer. But right now it feels like this is the first album we've gotten since Lord Willin' that felt like it could catch it.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:01Speaker 12

  And that's where we are now. And you're listening through the songs and you're like, like it's when it starts out and you get that, this incredibly written, beautiful sort of heartbreaking song.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:14Speaker 12

  About their parents who have both passed away. And you have, on the Burge Don't Think, you have Pusha rapping his verse about one parent. You have Malice rapping the other verse about the other parent.

• 1:08:25Speaker 03

  Finding is dead.

• 1:08:26Speaker 12

  And it's, oh my God, it's just, again, incredible writing, it's beautiful. But as you're going through it, I feel myself, oh, I think this is Malice for me. This is, this is 50.2 to Malice. You know, even though I love both of them, if I'm going to pick one of them at this particular moment right now, give me Malice 50.2 to Pusha's 49.8.

• 1:08:50Speaker 03

  I saw a tweet this morning where they were going through each song on the new record and assigning it to either Malice or Pusha. And it was six, six.

• 1:08:58Speaker 12

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Like it was a boxing card, like it was a boxing round card and they were equal. I agree with you completely that one of them has to be better, but one of them has to be better by the smallest possible increment of better, you know, allowable in rap music. That makes absolute sense to me.

• 1:09:15Speaker 12

  Yeah. And that's, that's a really fun idea, fun way to go about it. If you have an album by a group or by a duo, like who, who won this song? Let's count them out. And there's 13, there's 13 songs on there. Can't be a tie. It's not going to be a tie. Pick it, pick it. It's what, what fun it is, what, what a fortune we have to be able to. To do this with an album, because there's always a chance, there's always a chance your favorite artist puts an album out and it's not that good.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:09:46Speaker 12

  Four times Clips has put an album out, which means four times they had a chance to blow it, to screw something up, to be not good. That's not counting, you know, solo albums or anything, but four times they have delivered. And every time, I imagine if you're in their spot, every time it gets a little bit harder.

• 1:10:03Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:10:04Speaker 12

  Trickier and the expectations are continually rising, but the fact that they did it again, the fact that they played their rollout so perfectly.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:10:14Speaker 12

  The fact that they did their NPR tiny desk and started it with Virginia. It was like every step, every step that they made was fucking perfect. And I just, I tweeted this at some point, I don't remember when, but it was during the rollout and they're putting their music out, is that right after the album had come out? And it was like, it feels like when you listen to Clips, when you watch them talk about rap, when you see them in an interview, it feels like they treat, they treat their music like it's high art, right? That's how, that's how they approach it. And because they treat it that way, it feels that way. And I, and I think that's the best possible place a rapper can be, a musician can be, is when they show up with a thing and they're like,

• 1:10:54Speaker 12

  this is special, here's why it's special, here's the time that went into it and the effort that went into it, and you can feel it when you're playing it. I love it, I love it.

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  And it makes me feel old even to say this, but I wonder if there aren't many rappers, rap groups like this anymore. Like most new, super popular rap now is like, not as lyrical, you know, not as crisply enunciated. Like it's not as focused on like bars or punchlines or whatever. Like, do you wish there were more younger, newer groups like the Clips now? Or is it kind of cool that there aren't?

• 1:11:30Speaker 12

  I think it's cool that nobody is trying to be like the, like the Clips. Because nobody could, nobody could do what they do, which is part of what makes them special. Like when a rapper or musician makes music that it sounds like nobody else can make is when like, sign me up every single time. So I don't, I don't need for there to be a new Clips. I just need for there to be some new duos doing their own version of their own thing. And they show up and they do the same thing, they treat it like art, like high art, and it begins to, it begins to feel like that. So no, I don't think we don't, we don't need to. We don't need a new, we still have Clips. We don't need a new one.

• 1:12:10Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:12:10Speaker 12

  Let the, let the young kids make the music that they feel compelled to make. And it's, and it's gonna touch you the same way that Clips does.

• 1:12:18Speaker 03

  So you said, you're thinking about this new album possibly toppling Lord Willen five years from now. But like, at this exact moment, Lord Willen is still the best Clips album. Like, what is it about this record for you? You know, grinding, I think, is the peak of this record, but the whole thing, like, what is it about this record that still makes it so indomitable to you?

• 1:12:37Speaker 12

  Well, because you'll, you're always gonna have the benefit of the, of the newness, right?

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:12:43Speaker 12

  The beginning of the franchise.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  The debut, right, sure.

• 1:12:45Speaker 12

  Right.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:12:46Speaker 12

  It's, it's like, it's an introduction to this new, to this new world, really. Cause this is, again, this is 2002. So the internet was around, but it didn't exist the way that we know it today.

• 1:12:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:12:57Speaker 12

  It hadn't, it hadn't connected all of the pieces of the world yet, right? I was living in Texas when this album came out. I was in, I was living in Huntsville, Texas, right? I was still in college when this album came out. There was, there was, Virginia might as well have been South Korea for all I knew. Like, I had no idea how to get there, or where it was, or, or what it looked like, or what it sounded like. And then this album shows up and you go like, oh, oh, that's cool. Like, it, it, it has that feeling. It's always gonna have that feeling to it in a way that the other albums can't. The reason that this new one is starting to feel like it's got a chance to chase them down

• 1:13:38Speaker 12

  is because this new one feels like, oh, we have fully grown, fully matured Pusha T and Malice, rapping in a, rapping in a new, in a new sort of way. A way that they weren't rapping before, you know, a manner that they weren't rapping before on the, on the previous albums, because they're, you know, older together. It's a natural byproduct. It's the same thing we watched happen with Jay-Z when he put 444 out.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  444.

• 1:14:03Speaker 12

  It's like, oh, this sounds so much different than anything else he had done, because it was a new phase of his life, right? The new Clips album has that part going for it, in the way that Lord Willen has this introduction, this announcement, this declaration that we're going to be in your life. If you like music, we're going to be in your life for the next 30 years or whatever, however long they feel like making. Music for, but that's why Lord Willen right now is still for me at the, at the, at the top. It's, it's what an incredible album that is.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. So you're in Texas in 2002. Do you hear Lord Willen and think of them as southern rappers? Is Virginia Beach the South in the way that you understand geographically or culturally the South?

• 1:14:47Speaker 12

  Oh, that's a good question. I don't know the technical answer of is this the South or is this not the South? In the way that like the famous Pimpsey Atlanta isn't the South argument thing that happened. Right?

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:15:04Speaker 12

  That was like, that's a real conversation that was going on back then. But when I think about rap, it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel like anything other than Virginia. It feels like, like, like new ground breaking. It was like when, you know, rap starts in New York. And then all of a sudden we've got all of this stuff happening in LA and it's like, oh my God, there's a whole new thing over here. It's not like a version of this. It's a new thing. And then the South pops up, boom, and then it explodes and it takes over. Oh my God, there's a new thing. That's what Virginia feels like, which is, it's, which is so interesting because it's such a small space on the map.

• 1:15:44Speaker 12

  It's this tiny little thing that created this, this like waterfall of amazing music. So it feels to me less like we're going to categorize it with the South and more like we're going to, it deserves to be categorized as its own thing. I don't know how people from Virginia feel about that. What do they consider themselves in the South? But I would assume they would say, no, we're, we're, we're our own universe here.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that's the cooler thing to be. I think if you live in New York City, anywhere south of New Jersey is the South culturally.

• 1:16:16Speaker 12

  It feels like that sometimes.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  My other favorite no skips category is the damn that's hard as fuck award for the hardest line on an album, the single hardest line. And like, I have to imagine that's super tough for a record like Lord Will and like, maybe you remember the actual line and maybe you don't now, but like, what is the hardest line on the first clips record, Jay?

• 1:16:39Speaker 12

  Oh, man. So part of the reason that listening to clips is so much fun is because Pusha T and Malice are incredible writers, like actual bona fide poets, like real, real writers. I imagine if they wanted to, they could write easily a novel and it would be really, really good. So picking out the hardest thing, which is like a category they seem to specialize in is, I mean, so a few of them that stand out. There's a Malice line on there where he says, see, in my household, it was quite unique. Playing hide and seek, you might find

• 1:17:20Speaker 12

  a key. And it's like, picture, you're a child playing hide and seek in a house, having just a beautiful, fun time with your friends or with your brother or whatever. And you climb into the laundry basket and you throw towels on top of your head.

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  I was gonna go in the hamper.

• 1:17:36Speaker 12

  Yeah, under there. And then what's, what is, what am I standing on? And it's a fucking key of cocaine. Like, that's hard. That's so incredibly.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  It's very hard.

• 1:17:46Speaker 12

  So incredibly hard. There was a, there was a line in there where, where I think it was Malice and he talks about, he talks about his grandma and he says that she had a cigarette dangling at a 45 degree angle.

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  I love that. Yes.

• 1:18:02Speaker 12

  Right. And that, like, you hear that and you go like, that's incredible writing because it puts this picture into your brain immediately. It's a, it's a perfect example. I think writers talk about all the time is you gotta show, don't tell. Like, let the reader have it in their brain and paint the picture themselves rather than saying whatever. There's that one in there. I think my, my favorite one though, the one that made me just be like, oh my God, this is fucking crazy is a push a line where he says, he says like in Virginia, we smirked at the Simpson trial, talking about the OJ Simpson trial.

• 1:18:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:35Speaker 12

  And he says, it likes, we smirked at it, which is in and of itself crazy. But then he says, yeah, I guess the chase was wild, but what's the fuss about? This is a double murder, like a famous double murder.

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  It's pretty famous.

• 1:18:50Speaker 12

  Where somebody's heads were almost cut off. And he's like, what's the fuss about?

• 1:18:55Speaker 03

  What's the fuss about?

• 1:18:56Speaker 12

  It's such a common thing around here.

• 1:18:58Speaker 03

  It's Tuesday.

• 1:18:59Speaker 12

  What do we do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's hard. That's hard.

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  Many fine candidates for the damn, that's hard as fuck award.

• 1:19:10Speaker 03

  Jay, do you think it is reductive to describe the clips as coke rappers? Like, are they more than that?

• 1:19:17Speaker 12

  Of course they're more than that.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:19:20Speaker 12

  I mean, I get why people do it.

• 1:19:24Speaker 12

  What I never understood is I never understood the criticism for it. Oh, that's all that they, even if that was all that they rap about, which it's not. It's not. They established that, we just talked about on the very first song of their album.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  First song on the new record.

• 1:19:37Speaker 12

  They're talking about this whole other thing.

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  Their parents.

• 1:19:41Speaker 12

  Right? That's not all that they, all that they rap about, but I, but they're very good at, when they do, and they're very, it's very memorable when they do. So I get the, that people would call that out, but I never understood the criticism for it. It seems to me like criticizing Steph Curry for shooting too many threes, or like criticizing Shaq for dunking all the time.

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:01Speaker 12

  Steph Curry is the greatest shooter in the history of the world. Why would I not want him to shoot 12 three pointers a game? What are you talking about? If you have two guys who, who can do this thing better than anybody has ever done it, nobody has ever talked about drugs in the way that Pusha T and Malice do, why would I not want to hear as much of that as possible? What are you talking about? Why are you complaining about this thing? It doesn't make any sense at all, Rob. Why would I not want Rob Harvilla to write as much as possible and podcast as much as possible? He's very good at it. I want more of it.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  That's very kind of you. Thank you.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  I'm still thinking about you in the laundry hamper with a, with a key of cocaine.

• 1:20:48Speaker 12

  That's hard. What, what would your kids find? And what were you hiding in your laundry hamper? That's what I want to know. Cause at, cause at my house, they climb in, there's a fucking box of honey buns. That's what's in my hamper. It's not a key of cocaine.

• 1:21:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 1:21:01Speaker 12

  The box of honey buns.

• 1:21:02Speaker 03

  Oatmeal cream pies. It's like, they would probably melt in there, but that's a bad place to keep them. But yeah, that's, it would, it would be some sort of food item and that's.

• 1:21:12Speaker 12

  Playing hide and seek, you might find an oatmeal cream pie. That's what your kids are gonna rap about.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  That's right. That's a lot of syllables. Also, it's harder to rhyme that than with key. It's easier. Uh, just to wrap up, you sort of get into it in the chapter on Grinded, but like, when you listen to the clips, Shay, like, do you imagine that you yourself are a super rich cocaine dealer? Like, are you living vicariously through the clips?

• 1:21:37Speaker 12

  Oh, man. Absolutely.

• 1:21:39Speaker 03

  Okay. So you like, it's like you're in the car, you are the drug dealer superstar in that moment when you listen to them.

• 1:21:46Speaker 12

  When that album is playing? Yes. When it's, when it's going on and I'm driving home on my way, on my way home, Rob, from, from my, from my office, full of VHS tapes where I just spent, where I just spent nine hours typing an email to somebody. Type it. That's what I did all day long. When I, when I'm on my way home from work and let God sort them out as planned. And it, and the, and the volume is up and the windows are down and I'm listening to, to Mike Tyson, Blow to the Face.

• 1:22:18Speaker 03

  That's the track, man.

• 1:22:20Speaker 12

  I'm a hundred percent certain that I've got four pounds of cocaine in the trunk of my car, hidden in a, in a spare tire well.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  Underneath all the VHS tapes.

• 1:22:32Speaker 12

  And I'm, and I'm just praying I don't get pulled over for it. That's how I feel when I'm listening to it. And then I get home and I turn the radio off. And then I go inside and I eat my honey buns.

• 1:22:41Speaker 03

  You eat your oatmeal cream pies. No, that was me. You're the honey buns. Okay. That's what a gift that is, that the clips.

• 1:22:48Speaker 12

  What a gift. What a gift.

• 1:22:52Speaker 03

  Well, this has been fantastic, Shay. Thank you so much for coming here and let's, let's talk again real soon. Let's talk about some more music soon, Rob. That's right.

• 1:23:04Speaker 03

  Thanks very much to our guest this week, Shay Serrano. Thanks very much, as always, to our producers, Christopher Sutton, Olivia Creary, and Justin Sayles, and thanks very much to you for listening. And now, please, let's all go listen to Grindin' by The Clips. We'll see you next week.