60 Songs That Explain the '90s - "Grindin’"— The Clipse

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

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

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. 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. 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 Dysect podcast feed or the Dysect YouTube channel starting Tuesday, July 29th.

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 Sirian, 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.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bear. 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? K. Keth slew able and

Seth knew now why if the children of Israel was supposed to multiply Randy Newman God's song God 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 sposeda supposed to multiply. That's what really strips the forest bear and makes the deer give birth,

in my opinion. Why must any of the children who has to and the Lord sit? 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 a 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 is 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, what sort of shit, ship is sailing away on the album on the song, sail away. If you know any second thing about that you've got a friend and me guy, then you know enough to know that in Randy's opinion, you ain't got a friend in the Lord per se.

Man means nothing is less to me. The lowliest cactus flower, the humblest yucketree. 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.

because it thinks that's where I be. That's why I love mankind. 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 Edda James in here to shake the wilderness of Kadesh, shall we? From the foulness of these. from the squalor and the fields and misery. Yikes, I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee, says the Lord, to us, to mankind, through the flame-throwing and mountain-leveling medium of Edda James, covering God's song in 1973,

the ecstasy with which Edda James sings the words squalor. and filth and misery, the graceful malevolence with which Edda James sings, that's why I love mankind. This song is nasty in both the non-Janet Jackson sense and the Janet Jackson sense of the word nasty when Edda James sings it. Edda'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 is 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 hell of the 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 Edda twists the knife by actually laughing.

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. line. Let's see if Edda sings Sposda. No. She doesn't. That's too bad. I bet Edda James could have sung the bejesus

out of the word Sposda. Kane slew Abel. You hear about this? Are you up on Kane and Abel and Seth? The first three sons of Adam and Eve. Kane and Abel both gave offerings to the Lord, but the Lord liked Abel's offering better and Kane got pissed.

I'm paraphrasing. Let's not paraphrase. A reading from the book of Genesis, English Standard Version, Chapter 4, 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? 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. 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 whines 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. Kane 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 Kane and Abel have endured thereafter as an inexhaustibly rich foundational artistic text as an eternal symbol of man's folly and man's propensity for violence and man's uh whatever bob dillon is on about here now the moon is almost hidden beginning to hide the fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside bob dillon desolation row from his 1965 album highway 61 revisited

Remember when my chemical romance covered this song in 2009 for the soundtrack to the Watchman movie? I'd forgotten about that. Anyway, here's Bob doing the Cain and Able part. All except for Cain and Able and the hunchback of Notre Dame. Everybody is making love or else expecting rain. 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 Canaan Abel here on Desolation Row or the exclusion of Canaan 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 Canaanable 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.

Alas, the My Chemical Romance cover of Desolation Row cuts out some of the verses, including the Canaan Abel one. But here's part of the guitar solo. Well, I feel patriotic. The 2009 Zach Snyder Watchman movie would have made a billion dollars, and supplanted Jean D'Amon atop the sight and sound all-time best movies poll

if the weird watchman sex scene between Dan Dryberg and Laurie Jupiter and the Owlship 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 Kane slew Abel and east of Eden, Mama, he was cast. Though you might just have to

take my word for it. Bruce Springsteen, Adam raised a cane from his 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town. Is that as agro, 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 cane slew a bull situation. We are still being punished for it.

We meaning all mankind. Here, I'll let Bruce explain it. understand him perfectly here, right? Yeah, maybe not. We're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past. Kane 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 Kane killing Abel, that's the original felony. That's obnoxious. Wu Tang. The Wu is too slamming for these cold killer labels. So they ain't had to hit since I sing Aunt Mabel.

Be doing all the sitting like King did able. Now their money's getting stuck to the gum under the table. The Wu-Tang Clan. Protect Your Neck. 1999. That's the Jizza, a.k.a. the genius, aka the one member of the Wu-Tang clan who put out a full-length record

before Enter the Wutang 36 Chambers came out. Shout out, Prince Rakim also. That's the Jizza, illustrating two other crucial components of the Kane-Slew 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, Jizzah illuminates here. Lots of cool stuff rhymes with both Kane and Abel, including Aunt Mabel and Gum under the table. That's super helpful. Wu Tang again. then hate, separate, build a devil mind state, blood can not relate. No longer, brothers, we unstable, like cane when he slew, able, killing he junk. 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. Lauren Hill, forgive them father. 1999.

Backstabbers do this. Another big takeaway from Keynes-Loo-Able, look out. Watch your back. Absolutely. There's another way to approach this, you know. Flutal-proof all this beat. Young GZ. Now just GZ, but formerly young GZ. What I do, parentheses, just like that, close parentheses. 2011. Another way to approach this is to be like phenomenal Atlanta rapper GZ,

the snowman, and get two guns, two desert eagles, and name them Cain 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 Cain and Abel. The rapper's name is spelled K-A-N-E, whereas the biblical cane is C-A-I-N. Canein Abel out of New Orleans. They were big on Master P's No Limit's 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. called I am my brother's keeper. You got that? Because it took me a second. In the eyes ain't no future or is it. My boy had pride doing life Sundays is when I visit.

And damn, the shit get deeper. Am I my brother's keeper? 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 in on federal cocaine trapping and charges. Eventually they pled guilty to lesser charges,

serve 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 evoked the timeless foundational human tragedy

of Cain 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 five. fire. My grinds about family, never been about fame.

Some days I wasn't able, there was always cane. 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 cane. You know what we don't talk about enough for the first two words. Them days. The line doesn't work if it's those days, or the day.

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 cane. Cain as in cocaine, right? Right. But just as crucially, it's the brotherly aspect here. The way Cain and Able are both pitted against each other, but also leaning on each other. Them days I wasn't able, meaning the good guy, there was always cane, meaning the bad guy. And also, Them days I wasn't able, meaning the one brother, there was always cane, meaning the other brother. I keep typing out and then erasing various ridiculous hyperbolic statements. Now, I try my best, sincerely, not to overdo it. But I suspect that there is no greater use of nighed words in rap history than them days I wasn't able.

There was always cane. 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 push-a-tee. And push-a-tie and malice are known professionally as the Clips.

Clips is an e-clips. Everyone knows that Kane slew Abel. What the clips presupposes is, maybe he didn't. Brinning, you know what I keep in aligning, but it's staying in line with you see an, I've done that before, right? I've done the Royal Tennebombs, Eli Cash,

with this book presupposes this 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 explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing grinding. By the Virginia Beach rap duo clips.

from their 2002 debut album, Lord Willen. I'm supposed to do an ad break here. That was the third time I've done the Eli Cash Royal Tenen bombs. 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 sparness, 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. 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 kind of 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. And their name is NERD, which spells nerd from their debut album, released in 2001 and called Insert. of dot dot dot this is n erd with a song called lap dance on lead vocals we got ferell williams producer rapper mastermind impresario and fashioned visionary feral williams who is currently the men's creative director for louis viton which likely means a great deal to you if it means anything to you feral williams who is fond of the gandolph hat and the weird ass clothes as he himself put it once

while rapping. Now, if you know Farrell solely is the despicable me guy, the happy guy, then maybe you think Farrell's not about to talk about guns, but he's gonna. It sounds a little different when Jeez-y does it, don't it? I got something from, I got it from home, and I got it from home, and it ain't a microphone. And I dare a motherfucker to come in my face. This is the second version, the official version of the N-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.

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. Nah, that's nowhere near as good.

Europe. So, in 1996, young Virginia Beach visionaries, Ferell Williams and Chad Hugo, young associates of super producer and new Jack Swing architect Teddy Riley, Varell 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, Caleas, Mystical, JZ, etc. 2001 is the first true monster Neptune's year. Right, Nellie's hot in here. Usher's, you don't have to call.

Brittany's, I'm a slave for you. You know what else came out in 2001? You know my all-time favorite Neptune's production? you guessed it. 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 Can 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 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 rapish, rockish, funkish side project, NERD, 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 1, wearing white socks with slides. It's a remarkably beguiling album cover 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 going to 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 wrapped 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. I got to say that I get high off my dick because I take them to my home they call it the cockpit

I'm fucking gas to fly I got to say that I never fully registered chicks nickname 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 when I was 23? This is another song in 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. 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 in its silliness and it's precisely articulated in articulation. One thing I love about NERD 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 Nellie's hot in here about his friend with a pole in the basement. Stop pacing. Time wasting. I got a friend with a pole in the basement. What? I'm just kidding like Jason. Unless you're going to do it. Phenomenal comic timing there from Nellie, 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. Whether they drag me, bound me, hollow point round me,

dump me off the side of a bridge and drown me. Spare my family, the details on how they found me. Vigil by candlelight and gather around me. 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, Pee was then going by the name Terror, spelled T-E-R-R-A-R.

And yeah, Push-A-T is a better rapper name. On this song, the two brothers in the clips describe their funerals. They make funeral arrangements. 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. New physical frame with no sores on my throne ass guarded by angels with four-fold. Brand-new-ritalliates. Brand new physical frame with no flaws on my throne that's guarded by angels with four-fors. Even here in clips pre-history, pretty much, malice still wraps 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 push a tee in advance? No matter how foul my burial open casket, so they can see my plusters and my diamond smile. so they can see my clusters and my diamonds smiling.

Grusome opulence. That is Pushatty's eternal domain. And then he starts talking to his brother Malice from beyond the grave. Just to reiterate, ostensibly, this is the Cliffs' 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. Cliffs' career starts with a funeral, just like sleepless in Seattle. First of Madl

Don't let you half in a hole But now you're right for both of us I'm gentle thoughts to your soul Emmanuel Remember this When you see my nemesis Drop my picture on his chest And make his family reminisce

Don't let push a tease 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, an electro record

shelves the album and drops the clips. But these two brothers will transcend that bullshit as well. try to 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 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 Tea.

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.

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 cents power of the dollar, 50 cents 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. I'm out to you. What joy this brings and stagger away calm with drawn and whistling. I speak in this vein so y'all know what lines across. You can start breathing again.

Terror, signing up. 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. How did it work? the business? What was your job? This was all, uh, this is all rock cocaine, right? It's all cracked. Hold on. I'm not comfortable with all of that. No? 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, but 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. Yeah, I'm not. Why not? You talk about it. You, you, it's part of your testimony, you know, you're absolutely right. Hold on. Give me a second because I'm getting flustered. Okay, that's cool. Right now.

I mean, why dance around? You're right, but this is CNN. 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 microdocumentary 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 Brothers Keeper, what the fuck are you doing? That's the headline. Don't overthink it. Yes, everyone uses that headline for clip 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 Brothers Keeper. Complex Clips cover story in 2025, my brother's keeper. 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 tossed about what it's like to be a superstar rapper who raps a lot about how he used to sell drugs.

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. And let's just keep this in mind going forward, the eternal, the eating. 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 wrap a lot about selling drugs, like a lot, like somewhere between 75 and 90% of the time, whereas a great deal of

the clips's audience does not and has not sold drugs. There is, therefore, for many of us, an inherent voyeurism, a tourism aspect to the clips. And that is a little discomforting, but that discomfort can be productive. To quote a push a T-s-on 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. in descending chart order. Eminem, Nellie, and Avril Levine.

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 Willen, begins with push a tea and malice explaining what compelled them to start selling drugs. Crocket and Tubbs, for those of you not born.

in the 20th century. 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. My mama should have seen it coming. Me running up and down the stairs too quick humming Miami Vice theme music. Calderon made me colder. I see the villains impact Now that I'm older. Calderon is a bad guy from Miami Vice. I see the villain's impact now that I'm older. Raps Push a 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. Even went by the book at first.

Until I realized 9 to 5 wouldn't quench my thirst. So I start my mission. leave my residence. Mama knew that a child like me had better sister. I even went by the book at first until I realized nine to five wouldn't quench my thirst, Raff's Malice, evoking his mother as well. Their mother, Plishy 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, is really a family inheritance. But something had to give. That's real.

I had to live. I chef that soft white and pumped from her crib. Scouts on her started with my grandmama who distributed. Yay, she had flown in from the Bahamas. I chefed 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 Brinstein. Same thing, really. How I turned out, let it be no surprise. When he's me a cousin Ricky, it brings tears to the I see. My family got a history of hustler's little brother, big brother, mother to grandmother.

This song is called Young Boy. A goodly amount of Lord Willen is dedicated to sketching out this family tradition, to placing malice and push a tea 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. It is truly wild. to hear Farrell 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. Want to talk about cars, let's talk about it.

Won't talk about houses. Let's talk about it. I'm going to talk about Jews. Let's talk about it. We don't talk about money. Don't talk without it. I love the little dorky, perfect toy whistle there so much. That song is called Let's Talk About It.

We got Jermaine Dupre, Atlanta producer, rapper, mastermind, imprizario, Germain Dupre helping out on that one. The opulence. Sometimes gruesome opulence, sometimes just regular opulence. The opulence is unrelenting on Lord Willen. A substantial percentage of this record is just malice and push a tea, 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. It ain't too many things that exceed my reach. Speedboat glass floor let you see underneath. But never mind that, though, I'm just showing off as I do in the Porsche with the top loss. Malice is a glass bottom speedboat. Also, now it feels like a good time to say that it had never fully registered for me that the Lord Willan album cover is Push a Tea in 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. Yeah, they talk about this and that. Got it fucked up like I'm all about rap. Word is I'm loaded. They want a piece of that.

I respond with four words. Rat tat tat, tat. 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 Farrell intro to the clip song grinding annoying? Is Farrell's intro here superfluous or absolutely gloriously world historically necessary? The world is about to feel something that they never felt a foe.

Because generally, historically, the Farrell intro, it hasn't annoyed me, but despite the cool, slick reds, 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 Farrell's intro to grind in 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 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 in the room with the clips, everyone watching the clips do

grinding live. Everyone recited the Farrell intro. That's when I realized how important that part is. When everyone joined Farrell, Ferrell wasn't physically there, alas, but I was there. Everyone joined Farrell. 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 going to be a 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. 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's future and in eclipse fans future. Let them have this. Let Feral and let the clips announced the greatness of grinding before the greatness of grinding actually technically arrives. From ghetto to ghetto to backyard to yard, I sell it whip one whip and soft to hard. I'm the neighborhood pusher. Call me subwoofer because I pump things like that jack. 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 lunchroom 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. And so it takes push a tea 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 bear. And in Dave Chappelle's comedy club, all cry glory. Excuse me if my wealth got me full of myself.

cocky something that I just can't help Especially when them 20s is spinning like windmills And the ice 32 below minus the windchills I love malice's 20s 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 grinding 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 Hathno 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. 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 David's. They're, There is nowhere to go but down after grinding. And so the clips stayed mainstream, but also kind of sort of went underground. Guess the way my watch got blue chips in the face.

Glock with two tips, whoever gets in the way. Not to mention a hot away that rest by the lake. Consider my raw demeanor, the icing on the cake. I'm grind like a... Consider my raw demeanor, the icing on the cake, wraps Malice. And we do. We do. The clips put out their third album,

called Till the Casket Drops in 2009, and Hell Hathno 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. 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 that 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 and radically altered their previous, mostly secular career? Mace. Yes, okay, Mace. Him too. I meant this guy. mistake. Like can I now behold this chain of events that I must break. 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 kind of did. Like Kane, 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. In 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 M-T-B-T-T-F, which stands for Mike Tyson Blow to the Face. That's a COVID-E-R-T-E-F. That's a COVID-E. cane 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 push a tease and malice's parents who are both gone now. Now you'll write for both of us, I'll channel thoughts through your soul. Grindin 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. 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. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. That's malice on the Mike Tyson Blow to the Faith 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. We are shocked and delighted to be joined once again by our true best friend, Shea Serrano, Ringer alumnus, bestselling author, superstar podcaster, TV creator guy, VHS movie collector, etc. His next book is called Expensive Basketball

and you can pre-order it right now. Thank God you're here Shea. Thank you for being here. I'm very excited to be here, Rob. It's been too long. That's how long it's been. 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. Oh man. Ten years. That's wild. Ten. Picking, of course, one rap song for every year, the best of 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? 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 in 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 so you're looking for for songs that do something like that as you're making your way through the history of rap. And when Clip shows up with Grinding in 2002, produced by Farrell, it number one sounded like nothing had ever sounded before.

Rap was very much in that moment owned by the South. And then here comes this new group, this new sound. They had stuff before, but this was like their moment when they came out of nowhere. And they're like, oh, rap's going to 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 year. And that's why.

Yeah, the other thing I really like about the grind-in 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? It's going to be hard to ever top Scarface. Right. Because all of the stuff that comes after that is influenced by that. You know what I mean? Yeah.

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 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. 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 into the past, but it also sounded like someone was trying to make a phone call from outer space, which connected it to the future. Does Grindin still kind of sound like the future to you now?

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

And you go, okay, well, this will always be the flying cars and the teleportation devices of rap music. 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 still feels like we haven't caught up to it right and it's it's incredible is grinding the best the single best neptunes beat of all time jay oh yeah i think he's so it's the first one anyone is going to say let's go with that let's go with oh this is a silly one Remember rock star? Oh, sure.

The NERD song? Oh, I love rock star. Absolutely. Let's go with a... But yeah, grinding. Grinding is the number one. Here's the first thing they're going to say after my name type of performance or creation. 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 mastermining like a $20 million drug ring. 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? 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.

Right. It wouldn't affect that at all. Lion doesn't, after Rick Ross showed up in 2006. He did kind of kill the concept of lying being bad. Nobody cared anymore. It just became how cool can you sound when you say it, right? Right.

And so, separate of anything else, the clips, push a tea and malice, they have that. They sound cool when they say anything at all. They really do. They could talk about anything at all, and it sounds like the coolest thing you've ever heard. It's an addition 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. Right. No, I know what you mean. You also, of course, hosted, co-hosted the no skips podcast for the ringer, you know, each episode was about a no skips album. And you did Lord Will and you did the clips record. I love the category super lying, right? Where it's like the one lie. Like to just, it's just, it's just, it's. It's just, it's. Does the concept of super lying apply to the clips at all? No, because again, if they do tell a lie, if push a tea tells a lie, it just sounds, it sounds so cool that you're like, I'm happy that you're lying to me right now.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for lying. 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 quite while we're ahead and no one, we should, there should be no more brother duos after the clips because they sort of mastered it. I think the answer for this is the same as the lying thing. It doesn't affect the art at all. It's like Bunby and Pimsy being lifelong best friends and you're like, that makes sense. It makes sense that they play off of each other the way that they do when push a tea 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 anyone that you want. There's never a moment when it feels like one of them is in the way of the other one. Right. 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.

It's very cool that they are. Are you a malice guy or a push-a-tie guy, or is this not the kind of group where you have to pick one? I think you always have to pick one. I think always. That's a good rule. Okay.

It's a lie to be like, they're equally this. Nobody is ever equally the same. Even if it's a fraction of an amount. Okay. Sometimes a guy is better than the other guy on a particular song or on a particular album.

them or whatever. So it just depends on what you happen to be feeling in the moment. When Lord Willen came out, I was like, push a T is my fucking dude. That's my guy. Everything he's saying in here, every line he's writing when 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. We're battling in the in the fucking F1 10th of a second 100 meters at the

at the Olympics like that's where we are right now Noel is winning with a lean at the finish right then you go to hell

hathnal fury and it's like oh malice this is my malice album okay it bounces right and forth

this this latest one let God sort him 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 in first place. Okay. Let God sort them out is creeping up behind it.

It's fantastic. You know what I mean? I'm trying to filter out recency bias, but I agree with you completely. I love this. Yeah, we need some time with it. I need, ask me again in five years. Five years. Like a full, honest answer.

But right now it feels like this is the first album we've gotten since Lord Will and that felt like it could catch it. Right. 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 right about their parents who have both passed away and you have on the birds don't think you have uh pusha wrapping his verse about one parent you have malice

rapping the other verse about the other parent finding is dead and it's oh my god it's just again incredible writing is 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'd 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. 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. 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 yeah. And that's a really fun idea, a fun way to go about it. If you have an album by a group or by a duo, like 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. What fun it is. What, what, 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 right right

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 of course,

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

their NPR Tiny Desk and started it with Virginia. It was like 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 off the album I'd 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 they approach it. And because they treat it that way, it feels that way. 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, this is special. Here's why it's special. Here's the time that went into it and the effort then went into it. And you can feel it when you're playing it. I love it.

I love it. 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? 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 a musician makes music that it sounds like nobody else can make is when like sign me up every single time. So 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 need to, we don't need a new clip.

We still have clips. We don't need a new one. Right, right. Let the young kids make the music that they feel compelled to make. And it's, and it's going to touch you the same way that Clips does.

So you said, you're thinking about this new album, possibly toppling Lord Willan five years from now, but like at this exact moment, Lord Willan is still the best clips album. Like, what is it about this record for you? You know,

grindin, 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? Well, because you're always going to have the benefit of the newness, right? Sure. The beginning of the franchise. The debut. Right. Sure. It's like an, it's an introduction to this new, to this new world, really. Because this is, again, just 2002. So the internet was around, but it didn't exist the way that we know it today. 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? It 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 has that feeling. It's always going to 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 is because this new one feels like, oh, we have fully grown, fully matured, push a tea in malice, wrapping in a new sort of way, a way that they weren't rapping before, a manner that they

weren't rapping before on the previous album because they're older together. It's a natural byproduct. It's the same thing we watch happen with Jay-Z when he put 4-44 out. 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 it. But that's why Lord Willing right now is still for me at the top. It's what an incredible album that is. 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? 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 pimsy Atlanta isn't the South argument thing that happened right that was like a yeah 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 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 L.A. 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 so interesting because it's such a small space on the map. It's this tiny little thing that created 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 it deserves to be categorized. be categorized as its own thing. I don't know how people from Virginia feel about that. Do they consider themselves in the South? But I would assume they would say, no, we're our own universe here. 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 for all you know. It feels like that sometimes. 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, Chey? 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 a key.

And it's like, picture your, 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 the towels on top of your head. I was going to go under there. And then what is what am I standing on? And it's a fucking key of cocaine. Like that's hard. That's so incredibly. That's very hard. That's so incredibly hard. There was a there was a line in there where where I think, 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.

I love that, yes, the angle. Like, you hear that and you go, like, that's incredible writing because it puts this picture into your brain immediately. It's a perfect example. I think writers talk about all the time is you got to 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 favorite one though The one that made me just be like

Oh my God, this 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 Yeah, yeah And he says it like 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 It's pretty famous where somebody's heads were almost cut off. And he's like, what's the fuss about? What's the fuss about?

It's such a common thing around here. It's Tuesday. What do we do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's hard. That's hard. Many fine candidates for the damn. That's hard as fuck a word.

Jay, do you think it is reductive to describe the clips as Coke wrappers? Like, are they more than that? Of course they're more than that. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I get why people do it. What I never understood is I never understood the criticism for it. Right.

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. First song on the new record. They're talking about this whole other thing. Their parents. Yeah. Right.

That's not all that they rap about it. But they're very good at when they do. And it's very memorable when they do. So I get 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. 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 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. That's very kind of you. Thank you. I'm still thinking about you in the laundry hamper with a kilo of cocaine. That's hard.

What would your kids fine. What were you hiding in your laundry hamper? That's what I want to know. Because 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 cooking. The box of honey buns. 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 be some sort of food item. Playing hide and seek, you might find an oatmeal cream pie. That's what your kid's going to wrap about. That's right. That's a lot of syllables. Also, it's hard. to rhyme that than with key.

It's easier. Just to wrap up, you sort of get into it in the chapter on Grindin, 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? Oh, man. Absolutely. 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. When that album is playing, yes. When it's going on and I'm driving home on my way, on my way home, Rob, from my, from my office full of VHS tapes where I just spent, where I just spent nine hours typing an email to somebody. That's right. That's what I did all day long. When I'm on my way home from work and let God short amount is playing and the volume is up and the windows are down and I'm listening to Mike Tyson blow to the. the face. That's the track, man. I'm 100% certain that I've got four pounds of cocaine in the trunk of my car hidden in a spare tire well. Underneath all the VHS tapes. 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. You eat your oatmeal cream pies. No, that was me. You're the honey bones. Okay. What a gift that is that the clips. What a gift. What a gift. Well, this has been fantastic. Shea, thank you so much for coming here. And let's talk again real soon. Let's talk about some more music soon, Rob. That's right.

Thanks very much to our guest this week, Shea Serrano. Thanks very much, as always, to our producers, Christopher Sutton, Olivia Crierie, and Justin Sales. 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.