Clipse debut “Freedom” from Til The Casket Drops

The new Clipse single/video for “Freedom” picks up where Hell Hath No Fury left off. Malice and Pusha-T’s execution in craft remains, as it has for over a decade, some of the best in hip-hop. The Virginia Beach duo consistently releases powerful, resonant hip-hop. They unapologetically rap about women, cars, clothes, and jewelry. But they then counterbalance their swagger with lyrics doused in personal angst, loss, love, and introspection. And often Malice and Pusha-T demonstrate, through the conflict played out in their lyrics, the bizarre similarities between their past lives as drug dealers and their current lives as recording artists. It’s all about selling, it would seem. One of my favorite lines from this song — “They only tell you great when they reminiscing over you” — which in the video is a nod to the strange public legacy of dead rappers. Hopefully the rest of Til The Casket Drops (Columbia) lives up to the promise of this first single.