Hell Hath No Fury — Clipse
Re-Up/Star Trak/Jive
2006
Rating:


Clipse's debut "Lord Willin'" came and went during the summer of 2002 with a limited amount of interest from the critical community and the hip-hop-listening public despite the group's stamp of approval from The Neptunes. The album went to #1 on the Billboard charts, was certified gold and produced relatively mild hits with singles "Grindin'" (which peaked at #34 on the Hot 100) and "When the Last Time" (#19), but no one was exactly clamoring for the next Clipse offering.

Problems caused by the merger between Sony and BMG and offshoots Arista and Jive caused Clipse's follow-up, "Hell Hath No Fury," to be repeatedly delayed to the point where it was beginning to seem unlikely that the album would ever be released. At one point, Amazon.com listed the release date as Jan. 1, 2020. Clipse brothers Malice and Pusha T channeled their increasing rage into creating the underground "We Got It 4 Cheap" series, two albums of unhinged ferocity that surpassed anything the duo seemed capable of. Suddenly, Clipse became a cause celebre and a symbol of music label oppression.

With all eyes on Clipse and expectations high, it seemed impossible for Malice and Pusha T to live up to the hype. Buoyed by The Neptunes' best production in years, the Clipse delivers scalding rhymes of bluster, gangsterism and righteous anger over the kind of ingenious beats Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo built their reputations on.

From the opening track Clipse establishes it's aiming for masterpiece status by emulating no less than Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt" with "We Got It For Cheap." To an organ and Pharrell's beloved marching band bass drums, Malice compares releasing the album to "trying to fly, but they clipping your wings / And that's exactly why the caged bird sings." For Malice, "reparations are overdue," but he gets biblical with his willingness to "turn the other cheek" and a clip of Samuel L. Jackson quoting Ezekiel 25:17 in "Pulp Fiction."

The quote is appropriate: the album is as cool and cold-blooded as a Quentin Tarantino movie. "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" is similarly obsessed with Asian culture, but Clipse and The Neptunes make it their own. An epic of steel drum percussion and a snake charmer melody originally intended for Ill Na Na, it's hypnotic and strange, one of the most deliriously weird songs on the radio since "Milkshake."

"We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 1" frequently referenced "The Wire" and "Hell Hath No Fury" frequently plays like a musical version of the tense HBO detective series. Name-checking "Miami Vice," "Momma I'm Sorry" apologizes for not being "Tubbs and Crockett." On the streets, their conscious is [their] only accomplice." Pusha-T brags, "I philosophize about glocks and keys, / Niggas call me Young Black Socrates." "Dirty Money" is a shopping spree paid for with ill-gotten gains, but "Ride Around Shining" expresses remorse over slinging — "I, like you, had to come from up under the basement / Just like you, had Satan trying my patience" — and acknowledges the money might not always last: "All I wanna do is ride around shining / While I can afford it." On "Nightmares," the coke game causes Pusha to "creep low, thinking niggas tryin' to harm me / Hopin' my karma ain't coming back here to haunt me."

Then there's the stereo-melting "Trill." One of the nastiest beats ever recorded, "Trill" has, as Pusha says, "a beat with wings" flying over the darkest part of hell. Clipse answers Neptunes' challenge with dexterous lyrics like, "Flow chameleon / Worth by the million / Sell the Bolivian / Feds in oblivion / Bitch Brazillian / Purse reptilian / Took her from off her island like Gilligan."

"Hell Hath No Fury" is as ferocious as its title suggests and as legendary as its creation myth. This is truly uncompromised work.

Posted Friday, December 1, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/clipse/hell.hath.no.fury