Clipse Road To Till The Casket Drops
(Re-Up Gang Records)
A collection of tunes wrought with talk of their newly launched fashion label Play Cloths, this free (!) prelude to their upcoming 2009 release Till The Casket Drops is a stellar indication that the crown-wearing duo from Virginia still have the swagger portrayed on their last true release, 2006's magnificent Hell Hath No Fury.
Pop culture references, well constructed beats, clever similes, fast cars, drug metaphors; this is Clipse at their most effective, if not most marketable. And this is effective self-marketing. Lil Wayne utilizes it: gather enough interest for your latest album through above-average mixtapes, and your record sells itself. Clipse just adds the scheme of partially funding the production from bolstered sales of $40 tee shirts through the free advertising, and although it runs rampant through the tracks, so does engaging content.
Releasing a fresh creation of this caliber into the wild through the vehicle of the Internet also grants Clipse the advantage of relevance, not entirely dissimilar to Girl Talk's approach to music with a greater significance that relies heavily on immediacy. The result is that the one-liners are top notch as they interject the likes of Tony Romo, McCain/Palin, Nas, and David Blaine into the mix.
Clipse recognize the cult value of a mixtape, as they have been releasing them periodically between proper albums, and there's a lot to like on this, their latest concoction. The pair's timing is impeccable. Just when you get comfortable with the Neptunes-tinged approach to So Fly (Now We've Had Her), a sample with all the styling of Al Green smooths things out to a crushed velvet cadence that is completely mesmerizing. Another example of a well built song is Pop Champagne; just as I was getting bored by the awful sounding auto-tuned hook (a tired gimmick that probably could have been replaced with something a bit less grating), a smattering of bass fills in the gaps between the sharpness of the bongo hits, Ab-Liva delivers a precise guest vocal , and the whole track unfolds into a massive ghetto anthem. The triumphant production on Big Dreams and Swing Ya Rag recall the grandness and confidence of T.I.'s King.
Much unlike the majority of scatterbrainly organized mixtapes, Road To Till The Casket Drops is a quality filled effort that sees more hits than misses.
"Live fast, die young / With this kinda pitch they should gimme the Cy Young." I prefer to wait until The Casket drops (if you will) to start handing out awards, but feel free to butter up Roger Clemens. He could spare one.
Get the download here.
Get your Play Cloths here.