“Sometimes the rap game reminds me of the crack game.” - Nas, "Represent."

If you are to believe their tales of success in the crack game, it would seem that The Clipse could use another reminder. After their debut went gold in just two months, their follow up hasn’t reached the half million mark in nearly a year and a half. Don’t chalk the sophomore slump up to a dip in quality or credibility, but to bad timing and to an even worse label situation.

Today is a new day though, the Brothers Thornton have a imprint deal at Columbia and their Philly protégés in tow. It’s time to Re-Up.

HipHopDX: How’s the response to the We Got It 4 Cheap Volume 3 mixtape been [click here to listen...]? How many have you got out there?
Ab Liva: Man, we’ve been getting a great response from it.
Pusha T: It’s been crazy…we’ve got [20,000], maybe a little less than 20.

DX: Obviously, it’s a precursor to the next album. We’ve heard you’re branching out a little – not just The Neptunes. Can you tell us who else you’re working with?
Pusha T: We’ve been in with Scott Storch, The Runners, Dame Grease, THX…
Ab Liva: We’re comin’ with some names you’ll know, some names you never heard of.

DX: Is a Re-Up Gang album coming as well?
Pusha T: Yeah, f’sho.

DX: Before or after?
Pusha T: We’re trying to work that out now. It’s been in the makings for the Re-Up to come next. We’re actually going to re-distribute the mixtape through Koch. [We’re going to] shoot videos for “20K [Money Making Brothers on the Corner]” and “Show You How I Hustle.” You know, just keep building, giving this thing [as much] life as possible.

DX: How’s the situation with Columbia working out?
Malice: It feels good right now, man. Everything remains to be seen. But I’m happy with the atmosphere. I’m happy with the support from Hip Hop, and just to be under a legend like Rick Rubin – it just has a set up for everything positive. So, you know, it feels good and I look forward to seeing what happens.

DX: You guys are one of the few groups that get love from every side of the board, given that your content is [often] about crack. The underground cats usually hate on rappers with that type of content, yet they love you guys. Is there a secret to what you’re doing? Or is it just that you guys make good shit?
Malice: To me, it’s more so the realness; it’s the metaphors and the parallels we draw…regardless of what we talk about, the fundamentals of Hip Hop are still there. I think the underground [fans] and the purists can see that in whatever we do.
Ab Liva: I think that we bring integrity to it. Lyrically, we’re trying to push it to the next level, so they have to respect it.

DX: When your lyrical content is so often the same – how is it that you’re able to reinvent that topic and say it in a new and interesting way? What do you do that keeps it interesting, whereas often times other rappers’ content gets old after one album?
Ab Liva: We think. We really put thought into everything that we do, and really try to up the bar, and outdo ourselves every time.

DX: Here’s the million-dollar question: does anyone do crack rap better than you guys?
Pusha T: Hell no! You crazy? [Laughs]

DX: No Jay-Z, no Raekwon?
Malice: I respect those artists, they do they thing. Just right now, we’re trying to fill that void and take that spot. And by any means, we’ll get there.

DX: Is the stuff with Lil’ Wayne dead? Is it something you’re not concerned with anymore?
Pusha T: We’re not concerned with it, we’re just being respondent. That shit comes out of nowhere sometimes. We just respond to it. It is what it is.

DX: So does that mean you won’t be performing “What Happened to that Boy” tonight?
Pusha T: That’s our song anyway.

DX: Well just because Baby—
Pusha T [Laughing]: No one else is on that record! You liar!

DX: Going back to the mixtape – the beats you chose to freestyle over, was that an indicator of artists that you’d like to work with, or just beats that you love, or a mix of the two?
Ab Liva: Basically, they were beats we thought were hot, that we thought we could spit on. They were beats we just wanted to do our thing on.
Malice: To be honest, Spirit of Competition was supposed to be all recent beats that people came out with – it was supposed to be Jay-Z, Kanye, Nas, all these guys and all these albums we were gonna take these beats from and black out. But, production-wise, it just wasn’t inspiring. Not too many of the records were inspiring production-wise. We had to go back to “Scenario 2000” with Swizz and The L.O.X., “Rainy Dayz” with Raekwon…usually it’s that music that makes us want to put our spin on it. I wish it could’ve been different, but producers fell short this year. Continued on page 2 »