[ITW] Clipse et leurs prochains projets

1/18/2007

What’s up?

I’m good, man. Everything is beautiful. We got the Clipse album out and we’re working on We Got It For Cheap Volume 3 right now and we got the Re-Up Gang. Everything is good.

Hell Hath No Fury has been out for almost two months. Are you happy with how it has done so far?

Nah. I’m not happy at all. At the same time, it’s the same thing that I’ve been saying. I feel like I’m sitting back and seeing the future. This is what we’ve been arguing about back and forth and this is what we’ve been complaining about in the media. This is what the whole ongoing battle has been about, about getting the awareness on the project. I’m not happy about it at all. It’s like seeing a train coming. You’ve been seeing the smoke stack coming for a long time.

On “Hello New World,” you say, “Only time I’m boxed in is when the roof’s on the SL.” Did you ever feel boxed while in making Hell Hath No Fury?

Not making the album. It wasn’t so much making the album. It was more so being boxed in with the label drama. That stuff didn’t have anything to do with us. That wasn’t a Clipse problem. The Clipse didn’t do nothing.


Were you able to make the music you wanted to for Hell Hath No Fury?

Yeah. We made the album we wanted to make. We definitely made the album we wanted to make.


Did Jive want you to make something different?

Nah. They don’t know what they want you to make in regards to rap. Is there any success in rap over there? You have your down South vets like U.G.K. and you have Papoose and Da Youngbloodz. You have the Clipse and Too Short. What the Clipse do isn’t conducive to what they think sells records. Of the other three, there’s something that has to work. Nothing works.

Is the Jive staff under-qualified for their jobs?

I don’t know. I think it’s a promotions thing. That’s just my opinion. And at the end of the day, I’m sort of off just blaming Jive. Once you get in a sinking ship, it’s not about sitting here and complaining about who put the hole in it. You just have to plug up the holes. That’s what we’re trying to do. I can’t figure out what goes on up there. I can’t. It’s just about me leaving my impressions with the fans and what I can do in my power. It’s about us as the Clipse and us as the Re-Up Gang. That’s all I can worry about right now.

Hell Hath No Fury got great reviews…

Let me say this: truth be told, everybody who came out and any heavy hitter, any old school, new school, whatever, I don’t think anybody got better reviews than Hell Hath No Fury. When the sales don’t match up and the mag publicity is there, there’s a bit more to it. Somebody else is dropping the ball elsewhere.

Do you pay close attention to the reviews?

I love the reviews. You have to know who I am. Jive’s not paying for that. Jive’s not paying for these guys to say these things. You have to know that’s true.

Malice has a line on “Hello New World” where he talks about how the “positive” rapper tries to tell his listeners how to live. How do you balance telling your fans that they don’t have to live like you did without coming across as preachy?

It’s nothing conscious that we do. We don’t consciously say, “Hey, we’re going to school you guys.” We talk about what we talk about and we speak in vivid detail. That’s just how we write. The Clipse don’t just write in gratuitous form. The Clipse write in a 360o spectrum. You have to hear the good and the bad. You’re not going to hear a Clipse album and just hear about bricks, ki’s, money, guns, hoes, fucking, parties, more bricks and more ki’s. There’s a pro and a con to everything and that’s how we write and that’s how we were brought up to write. It’s just about speaking reality. The truth is there’s always a good time and there’s always a bad time.

The fact that you show the whole picture is what’s great about Hell Hath No Fury. Was showing all those angles on the album natural for you?

It comes out so naturally. I don’t understand it. We’re writing from a real place. If you’re not writing from a real place, then you’re writing from fantasy. Fantasy always sounds good, doesn’t it? Fantasy is a wonderful place. Fantasy always makes it rain. In fantasy, the girl loves you for you. In fantasy, you hustle all day and all night long on the corner and you never run from the police. They see you and they keep going by. Fantasy is you get high, you get drunk, you fuck bitches all day long and you keep your money. Fantasy is amazing.

Is the excess of fantasy ruining hip-hop right now?

Of course it is. I think the people are just getting numb to differentiating what is real and what isn’t. I love hip-hop for the level of realness in it. You can see the level of progression in people’s careers. I can go to Reasonable Doubt and say, “Jay went from here to here to here.” I can go to Ready and Die and say, “Big is here and he is more into lavish living now” with his later work. You can see the gradualness of it. When it’s real you can feel it and you can see it. Right now, you have rap dudes who are selling more ki’s than they did when they first dropped. It’s fucking amazing. I just think it’s crazy. And granted, this is the music business. Some songs are for fun and some songs are for this and some songs are for that. Everybody gets into this whole “real” bit and it’s just amazing. It’s amazing to me.


Is there a way to tell the real from the fake?

There’s not. And you shouldn’t even spend your time trying to. I’m just telling you about the blatantness of it. You shouldn’t spend your time trying to figure out who did what and who didn’t do what. At the end of the day, I either like what you say or I don’t like what you say. But you can’t blatantly lie to me. You can’t blatantly lie. I was locked into the rappers that I liked because you could see the progression. It’s like you’re taking the steps with them. You’re growing with the people.

What was the hardest song for you to write on Hell Hath No Fury?

I think it’s “We Got It For Cheap.” “We Got It For Cheap” sort of hurt. That sort of hurt. “We Got It For Cheap” sort of hurt. Listening to my brother’s verse on that, it was just a bit much.

Why did you keep Hell Hath No Fury to 12 tracks?

Because long albums are a joke to me. They’re a joke to us. You’re getting all filler. We’re tired of that. There’s been too much filler. It’s quantity over quality these days, even with the mixtape game. How the fuck do you do 30 tracks on a mixtape and you’re not talking about shit? It’s a joke.

Most classic albums are short.

Yeah. What aren’t you getting across in that timeframe? I just want to make classic pieces, man. We just want to make classic material. I’m not trying to sit around and make the longest album in the world. What didn’t you hear in those tracks that you needed to hear? I don’t know what I missed that I wanted to write. This is my life I’m giving you. This is my life.

What kind of production did you want from the Neptunes for Hell Hath No Fury?

All I wanted was the demon. We didn’t want anything but the demon. We didn’t want anything that was happy-go-lucky. We didn’t want any of the cute shit that they’ve been doing lately. That was a struggle in itself. We had a couple issues like, “I don’t like this and I’m not with it.” They were like, “You’re crazy.” “Nah, that’s not how we feel right now. I can’t party with you right now. We can’t. Leave that to your other artists.”

“Grindin’” opened a lot of ears to the Clipse. Did it hurt not having another “Grindin’” on Hell Hath No Fury?[b]

No. “Grindin’” was a worked record. “Grindin’” took nine months to break. That wasn’t an out-the-gate record. No record on my album was worked like that by the company.

[b]Some of the beats on Hell Hath No Fury have a very minimalist sound. What was your motivation for that?

If everybody’s going left, we want to go right. That’s just our motto. We don’t want to do anything that everybody else is going. That’s a joke. I don’t even think producers are that good these days.

You have to listen to me. You have to listen to what we say, whether you like it or not. You definitely heard it.

Were the Neptunes as involved in Hell Hath No Fury as you wanted them to be?

I wanted the Neptunes to produce the records that they did and they did an amazing job on the production of this album. An amazing job.

Was it a struggle recording with them when they wanted you to go a way you didn’t want to go?

It wasn’t always. It was just that the mood was set for this album and we can only write off our feeling, which could be our downfall. That’s true. In my heart, I couldn’t give you anything that was that lighthearted.

It was said that Usher would be on the album. Is that true?

We had that song. We just didn’t want to use it. Not at all. It just wouldn’t have fit with the album concept. I can’t party.

What do you have to do from here on out to keep people interested in Hell Hath No Fury?

We’re getting on the road. Honestly, we’re just going to keep coming with more music and more mixtapes. I look at all the classics. I look at Reasonable Doubt. I look at Illmatic. I look at The Infamous. Those records out the gate, they just weren’t responded to immediately. It’s all good. Not everything is. In a perfect world, everything would be platinum-plus out the gate. It didn’t happen that way for a lot of artists and it damn-sure isn’t going to kill us. And on top of that, I look at the albums that are out now and I don’t hear people talking about them either.

Your mixtapes have gotten great reviews. Did you ever see them being as popular as they are?

I don’t know. I don’t know. When I listen to them, I listen to them as a fan and I thought they were amazing. It’s always good when you get that type of acclaim as well and your people agree. I can’t say if I thought it would be great or not. I can tell you that it feels good when people agree with you.

How is We Got It For Cheap Volume 3 coming?

It’s so amazing. It’s hard as hell. I want to let you know that I’m very mad at producers. I’m very upset. Ab-Liva, one of my partners in the group, had fed me the dream that this mixtape was supposed to be about taking everybody’s beats and rapping over them and just killing them. Dog, the records that came out were just so not conducive to what we were trying to do, rap-wise. We couldn’t do it. That was going to be the mode of it. And Liva sold me on the dream that in the fourth quarter, we were going to have so many great beats to pick from. It was a lie. And I’m annoyed. But from what we do have, and we’re seven tracks in, I’m real happy about it.


What do you look for in beats?

It just has to make me feel like something. Beats, to me, pull out the emotion in you. That’s when things are created. Records like “What’s Beef?” made Big say, “Ha ha ha ha haa.” Those are records that make you do things. Beats make you do things. It’s not just about rapping a song with your first name. I didn’t have that. No one came with it.

Do a lot of producers reach out to you even though you work so closely with the Neptunes?

I speak with Alchemist and a couple of other guys. We’re open to working with everybody. I’m a big fan of Danjahandz. He’s a producer under Timbaland. Hell Hath No Fury was all about giving the fans what they waited for. I hate when people wait for something and then it’s not what they wanted.

Do you see the Clipse staying at Jive?

We’re just rolling with the punches. I can’t really get into all that because I know that I’m obligated to do an album or two with them. That’s really all I can say. All I’m doing is working to fulfill my obligation.

If you’re working to fulfill your obligation, is the quality of your music going to be compromised?

No. The artistic side will never be sacrificed. That’s when I’m in my zone. When it gets out of my hands, that’s when it all falls down and fucks up. Whatever I’m rapping about and whatever mood I’m in, that’s going to be the best of what it is.

Have you started working on the Re-Up Gang album?


Yeah. We have all types of new producers for that. We started working on that and it’s hot. We still have to get in the studio with a few heavy hitters, but we’re well on our way with that.

Will Ab-Liva drop an album soon?

Ab-Liva is the best rapper ever. He’s one of the best rappers I’ve ever encountered and I’m probably his biggest fan and I’m sure he’ll be putting out a solo album.


What’s up with Fam-Lay?

I just left Fam-Lay. I wish you had called earlier. You could have had a great talk with Fam-Lay. He’s over there in that Interscope system. It’s tough everywhere. You know what it is? These guys that you’re talking about, these guys are my family and I deal with them on a daily. It’s just a thing where whichever way the ball bounces, we make sure we’re all all right.

Why hasn’t Virginia blown up like other regions?

It’s great for producers. Producers are in abundance here. They’ve made a lot of great music. It is what it is. I think we’re still trying to find ourselves as artists and lyricists.

We had to wait four years after Lord Willin’ for Hell Hath No Fury. Will your third album come quicker?

The third album will definitely come quicker. I have an obligation to fill and I’m going to fill it. Take that how you want to take it.

Have you started thinking about that album?

I don’t really know how it will come out. I know who I want to work with. I want to get back in the studio with the Neptunes and maybe another person. That’s enough to drive this album artistically to be the best possible thing it can be.

Do you see yourself and Malice ever dropping solo projects?

Man, those offers are all on the table in it, but I am so uninterested in it. I am so uninterested in dropping a solo project. The people are asking for it and the labels are definitely asking for it. The only thing the Clipse can do right now is give people different types of impressions and I think we’re doing a disservice to not consider all the options.

What do you hope to accomplish with your upcoming tour?

It’s just about putting on the best show we can possibly put on for the actual Clipse fans and for anyone else who just wants to come see. Hopefully it will spread the word even more. We’ve done what we’ve done with our numbers. It’s just about performing and catering to those who love it.

What advice do you have for up-and-coming artists who are hungry for that major label deal?

Read over the paperwork and make sure that what you’re getting into is something that you can get yourself out of. I can deal with things when I get myself into situations. If I’m in a situation and I get myself into a pickle, I can deal with it better than having to rely on others and let the egos of others affect my situation.

What do you want to say to everybody?

We appreciate the support. ’07 is the Re-Up Gang year. We’re going to keep coming with the lyric-driven, hot hip-hop. If you’re looking for the real, this is it.