We Got It 4 Cheap

When it all makes sense: you’re riding the 39 bus back from wherever, and you gradually become aware of a little kid, barely mustached, like 14 max, sitting in the back rapping along quietly to his “How We Do” ringtone - 45 seconds or so thereof, ringtone ends, press the green button and start it all over again, keep rapping, get the articulation down. He’s unable to do the “ES-CO-LADE” bit any different from 50, but that’s fine; meanwhile he’s trying to recast every other syllable in his own cadence, trying to outdo the Game at his own game.

So what’s the essential difference between the kid on the bus and Clipse’s “We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2″? (Which is a mixtape in the most appealing sense of the word, really - the first half-dozen songs are the best ones, even the iffy production values have a meaning.) Clinton Sparks isn’t my favorite producer, but he knows how to work within this concept: mix the vocals way up to the point of saturation, stay out of the way, let Pharrell get a verse here and there, drop the “Get familiar!” sample at the beginning of every track. Being a serviceable producer isn’t exactly an insult when you’re mostly working with instrumentals that everybody knows.

Most of all, Sparks knows the art of sequencing - this mixtape flows ridiculously well start to finish, and the verses themselves are positioned for maximum effect - usually Pusha T or Ab-Liva starting off, Malice getting in near the end. (Along with Sandman, Ab-Liva, who used to be in the Major Figgas, is the other Clipse underling getting a verse on every song for some reason - Sandman is pretty terrible, but Liva has a nice flow and a talent for staccato imagery that complements some of Pusha’s more ridiculous punchlines.) The best posse cuts can be arranged like a batting order - RZA’s always understood this - but Clinton Sparks makes this record sound cohesive and natural. Given the roster of producers, it’s no small feat. “Zen” manages to stick out in part because of the production, which isn’t lean and spare the way “Lord Willin” was - instead, it’s all hand claps and gunshots and synth squawks, Liva sounding guttural and mean, the chorus brashly stealing the Afrika Bambaataa “zen-ze-zen-ze-zen” riff, the entire thing booming and ominous.

That being said, “Mr. Me Too,” the first single off the upcoming (though who knows when) “Hell Hath No Fury,” is a return to the sparse Neptunes minimalism of early-decade Clipse. Pharrell gets the first verse and his Ice Cream/skateboard bullshit is still embarassing and misguided like whatever mid-90’s Christmas it was when my grandmother gave me tape copies of “A Boy Named Goo,” “Cracked Rear View,” and Michael Bolton’s “The One Thing”, but he’s so quiet while he does it - breathy and hushed like he’s rehearsing in his bedroom and trying not to wake up the neighbors. Clipse love to talk about how angry “Hell Hath No Fury” is going to be, but on this song they manage to cast their arrogance in a bored, diffident light. Think of the place they’re in right now - beloved by a small cross-section of critics and rap fans, but several years removed, due to label squabbles, from a place in the hip-hop zeitgeist. And if the list of stations provided by whoever’s doing press for their label is any indication, nobody involved with “Mr. Me Too” has any idea how this is going to work within the context of club play or the radio. Is a Top 40 station like Kiss 108 in Boston (or worse, 93Q in Syracuse) really going to play a Clipse song? There’s covering your bases, and then there’s intentional difficulty, and the latter might be damning for this record if it all sounds squelchy like “Chinese New Year” or ostentatious and tacky like “Mr. Me Too.” Regarding Neptunes beats, Pusha T claims that “we’re not taking it if it ain’t something crazy out of the box,” and that makes me wonder. Then again, “Grindin’” and “What Happened To That Boy?” both managed to be successful - epochal, maybe - so who knows? This could all be irrelevant if hip-hop tastemakers continue to be openminded.

I’ve never actually cared much about (the?) Clipse before beyond the singles I’ve heard, but it’s impossible to ignore the way they’ve gone about responding to being shit on by the music industry. Over the course of its frantic, compact hour, “We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 2″ basically states the following:

1. Our talents as rappers are eclipsed only by our talents as drug dealers.
2. Our profits from the latter are so incredibly lucrative that we hardly need to rap anymore, except out of sheer spite.
3. Accordingly, we are going to steal all your best beats and rap over them. Go ahead and sue us. We can afford better lawyers than you now.

That’s more or less always been Clipse’s shtick, of course, but it works better in this format than it ever has before, borne out largely by the fact that Clipse’s boasts sound even more extravagant when paired with these instrumentals. Pusha T, in particular, is learning how to use his voice, no longer limited to his nasal monotone - his verse on “1 Thing” is especially urgent and hungry. At the end of an album in which it’s made clear again and again that Clipse have nothing to lose, Pusha sounds like he has something to prove.