Inside the Rollout of Clipse’s First New Album in 16 Years: ‘It’s Rap at Its Highest Level’

It’s been 16 years since Virginia hip-hop duo Clipse — brothers Pusha T and Malice — last came together to release an album (2009’s Til The Casket Drops). By that point, the group had cemented a formidable legacy built on coke-rap bars, slick and effortless braggadocio, and ingenious wordplay that dripped with luxurious references spanning the spectrum of pop culture and drug dealing — all over a distinct palette largely provided by Pharrell and the Neptunes. There were the classic albums — two of them by most counts, in their 2002 debut Lord Willin’ and 2006 follow-up Hell Hath No Fury — and the iconic mixtapes, which some would argue were even better, that bridged the gaps between official albums.

And then there was the breakup, when Pusha and Malice (who converted to Christianity and began going by No Malice) first announced they would be putting out solo projects — then that the group, as it was known, was over. And thus the drought began.

What followed was a ferocious run of solo projects from Pusha and two from No Malice, as the two MCs charted their own paths. Pusha in particular cemented his place as one of the most feared and respected rappers in hip-hop’s history, never backing down from a challenge against the biggest rappers in the world and always delivering quality work, whether in his guest verses or on his quartet of highly-praised albums, the most recent of which, 2022’s It’s Almost Dry, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

But still, Clipse’s reputation loomed as the purest of the pure, and a thaw in the relationship between the brothers eventually produced their first collaborations in nearly a decade — first on Kanye West’s DONDA in 2019, then on Japanese designer Nigo’s 2022 project I Know Nigo and, later, on It’s Almost Dry, where the eldest brother reclaimed the name Malice. Since then, the brothers have been gearing up for their long-awaited reunion, which finally arrived this last Friday (July 11) in the form of Let God Sort Em Out.

The project is a triumph, set up by a series of high-profile art and fashion collaborations with the likes of KAWS, Jeremy Sperling, Verdy, Carhartt and Adidas, as well as a high-profile split from Pusha’s longtime label Def Jam in favor of a distribution deal with Roc Nation. Pusha’s manager, Steven Victor, was right there with the duo as they orchestrated one of the most cohesive album rollouts in recent hip-hop history, during a time when many favor the surprise drop over the value that comes with building anticipation.

But this is the first Clipse album in 16 years — anticipation has been the name of the game. Here, Victor talks about how Pusha T and Malice helped build that by largely focusing on the one thing that was always undeniable about them: the music. “I know the reaction will be exceptional,” Victor tells Billboard by phone hours before the album comes out. “If we were still in the day and age where magazines were still rating albums, this was a Source five mics. This is a XXL in XXL. I think the fans and the public will receive it extremely well.”

As for what’s next? “More music, very very soon,” he adds. “There’s not going to be another long wait for new music. There’s a tour coming the beginning of August, first in the States and then in Europe. And then it’s back to music.”

This is the first Clipse album in 16 years. How did you want to reintroduce them?

The thought was not to reintroduce them. After 16 years, the landscape has completely changed from the last time they put music out — the way people put music out [is different], the fan base is older. Luckily for us, Pusha has been so active in the past 15 years since his brother took his hiatus, so it wasn’t so much of a reintroduction, it was more just putting out music: “Let’s put out the best kind of music, the music you guys want to make, the same kind of music you would have put out and stay true to what you guys do. Let’s not make any changes, let’s just focus on making the best product regardless of the time.” Let’s not look at it like, “People are making this kind of music, so we have to do that,” or, “This is the sound that’s working, so let’s try to figure something out like that.” 

Clipse has appeared together on a handful of singles the past couple years. Did that help build the buzz?

You mean when Malice appeared on Pusha’s album and Clipse were on the Nigo album? We weren’t even thinking about putting out an album when those singles came out. That wasn’t intentional, it was more so, Nigo really wanted Clipse, and on Pusha’s album, he felt like Malice would sound good on that record. It wasn’t until they made a decision collectively that they wanted to put an album out that we started working on it. And then once the album was done, we started marketing it. But it was never, “Let’s see what’s going on out there.” We weren’t teasing that at all; it was more, “Let’s put this record out.”

So once they made the album, what was the marketing approach?

Everything you see going on was very, very deliberate. The approach was to work with the people we’ve been working with since the group was first around, and introduce where everyone is in their current careers. We’ve known KAWS for 20 years; he did the cover for Til The Casket Drops, so we’ve been friends and fans and had a relationship with him for a very long time. Carhartt, that’s something that Pusha’s a huge fan of the brand and always wanted to work with them. Same thing with Josh Sperling, we’ve known him since he worked with KAWS. Same thing with Verdy, he’s part of the Nigo family.

So all of these things were very deliberate. We’d have these conversations, and Pusha would be like, “As we introduce the Clipse back, let’s make it organic: let’s not work with anybody that’s outside our wheelhouse. Let’s bring everybody into it: everybody we’re fans of and everybody we’ve been working with the past 20 years, that’s who we want to work with.”

What were some of these things that you felt were impactful?

I think the KAWS cover was very impactful. Everybody that’s a fan of KAWS, a fan of Clipse, a fan of Pusha, they know that these guys have been working together for a long time, and I feel like it was refreshing. Verdy was fire. Denim Tears was fire; we’ve been friends with Tremaine [Emory, founder of Denim Tears] for a long time, and Pusha and Tremaine have always been speaking about doing something. But the most impactful one was probably KAWS. The last album they came out with, he did the cover, so for him to do the comeback album, too, was perfect, I thought.

Everything has completely changed in the music business in 16 years. How did your approach change in the rollout?

To be honest, it didn’t. We’ve always had the opinion that all you have to do is make great product that’s true to you as an artist. The times may change, but that’s been constant. Music, art, automobiles, fashion — anything that can stand the test of time and has been great, no amount of marketing can change or sway things one way or the other if the product itself is not great. You can do all different marketing things, all different collabs, all different merch bundles, but if the product itself is not good and is not true to the person or the artist, it’s never going to work.

So the idea was, “Let’s make the best album, the best body of work, get the best album cover, the best of Pharrell, the best lyrics — everything should be a 10 of 10.” That was the approach. Let’s not compromise, let’s just do everything the best that we can do it, and double down to our fans, super-serve and speak to our audience. And if it’s [as] good [as] we think it is, they’re going to do all the marketing for us.

You’ve done things with streaming companies, social media, clothing companies, press, radio — did you intend to blanket everything to get the word out that this album is coming? How did you select which opportunities you went for?

The same thing. We’ve always had a great relationship with Jon Caramanica [at The New York Times] — he wrote the [2006] Mass Appeal cover, No Business Like Snow Business, back in the day. Have a great relationship with Ebro [Darden, at Apple Music]. It’s the same thing — we just went to everyone we knew that was a fan, that appreciated the kind of music and art that the guys make, and were like, “Let’s do something with these people.” We hand-selected everyone we wanted to talk to on the press side, people who we had a genuine relationship with who understand and respect the work that we do, and we presented it to them first. “We’re doing this project, we want you to be a part of it.” That was the approach. From the music, to the art, to the journalism, let’s not stray away from anything that we’ve done in the past, let’s keep it constant and consistent.

You mentioned the audience is older, the guys are older, everyone is older. Did that factor into things at all?

We definitely want to cater to the existing fan. But the landscape has changed, so everyone is that much smarter. Everyone who is young has access to all the information in the world. So we felt like if we made the best product, it would travel, so we would pick up some fans just through the nature of how things are consumed now — the internet has made the world so small. So anything that’s good, people will talk about it, and it’ll cause other people that are searching for good product to find it. Word of mouth travels faster now than it ever has, just because of the internet.

We’ve talked in the past about how, in helping build Clipse’s career originally, they became masters of the internet through the distribution of their mixtapes. Now, in the streaming era, the internet is fully ubiquitous. How have you approached it this time around?

It’s crazy — you’d think there’s some difference, but no; the more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s the same target, the same fan; they might be new fans, some of the original fans might be older, but it’s the same person that’s looking for that purest form of art. That’s what this is: it’s rap at its highest level.

And part of the marketing and rollout is also to show everyone else, whether it’s other rappers or musicians or aspiring musicians or aspiring executives or anyone that wants to do something with their lives, you can continue doing things at a high level for as long as you want to do it. There’s no age restriction. You can start at 10, and at age 60, you can still be doing your best work. Other than someone like Jay-Z, there are not many rappers that age like wine, where the music gets better over time, and you’re able to compete with the newest, hottest artist 20 years later, still be the topic of conversations, still at the top of your game. It’s a testament to, and it’s super impressive for, the guys.

Did you come across any challenges in rolling this out?

The only challenges were when we had the hiccup with Def Jam. Because we had this plan since the album was done. We had all of these collaborations — with KAWS, Verdy, Denim Tears, Josh Sperling, Carhartt — all of these things have been done for over a year. So we had this plan, and we presented this plan to Def Jam: “This is the album, this is what we want to do, this is how we want to roll it out, this is what we want to be a single, this is the time frame for how we announce and how we put the album out.” We wanted to have a very tight time frame; we didn’t want to have a six-month window, we wanted it within 10 weeks, max. So we’ve had this plan for a very long time. It got frustrating after some time, because we couldn’t start implementing the plan because of the hiccup with the whole Def Jam thing.

Did that switch to Roc Nation change anything at all?

When we went to Roc, and I spoke to Krystian [Santini, president of ROC Nation Distribution], I gave him the same exact plan: “This is what we want to do, here’s the merch bundles, here’s the singles, here’s the videos.” Everything was already shot; we did everything internally, and we presented it to Def Jam the same way we presented it to Roc Nation. So that was the only challenge. Everything else was pretty smooth because we’ve been very deliberate with how we roll it out.