Thedewsperspective

I remember a time when people of a certain age were pleading with the industry to make Hip Hop music for grown ups.  It was an untapped market.  We, the 40 and over crowd, were too old for the freestyle, punched in lyrics that lacked fluidity and emotion provoking lyricism.  Our ears had matured and aesthetically we sought something that elevated the culture.  We needed something that spoke to us and about us in an eloquent manner.  But it had to still keep the true essence of what we reserved Hip Hop to be.  Well, I’ll be damned! The Clipse and Pharrell seemed to have intentionally merge all that Hip Hop entails to allow the first generation to be proud.  To use dope boy lingo: the Clipse, just dropped, a bomb. 

I was just on social media and saw that AllHipHop.com posted a poll.  The question was asked, “did Clipse deliver an instant classic with Let GOD Sort Em Out”?  One hour into the poll they had 292 responses with 88% percent emphatically saying “yes.”  I am one of the 88 percenters.  The album starts with the first song paying homage to their parents. It concludes with the last song so fittingly entitled By the Grace of GOD. Clipse has once again solidified themselves as pillars of the genre.  It’s evident that they are an essential to Hip Hop.  They should be protected at all costs.

Let GOD Sort Em Out is a collage of 13 unskippable songs. It is masterfully crafted and curated into 41 minutes. The album features beautifully simplistic boom bap driven beats. And these beats are immersed with golden era composition notebook rhymes.  It’s a masterpiece of Hip Hop.  As I listened to the album, I heard the Hip Hop that I fell in love with in the ‘80s and ‘90s.  I hear it in the music that was played.  I feel it in the rhyme camaraderie displayed by the Thornton brothers and their featured guests.  It feels like Eric and Parrish Making Dollars or Purple Tape Ghost & Rae.  So Be It took inspiration from Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys with the backwards 808 as the melodic backdrop, which Pusha used to spit, ‘when I was born grandmama could see it..”  Run-DMC was inconspicuously referenced, the infamous MOBB DEEP was name dropped.  Featured guest lyricist Kendrick Lamar stated that half of his profits/prophets should go to the god emcee Rakim.  Not to mention Nas hollered he, “single handedly boosted rap to its truest place. Fuck speaking candidly I alone did rejuvenate Hip Hop into its newest place.”  Regarding Clipse bars, it’s too many to reference.  Let me say this though, if the Source Magazine still existed, Matty C would have a plethora of hip hop quotables to highlight from Let GOD Sort Em Out.  Bonafide classic material.  Elegant.  From the cover art, to the merch, and the precision of the artistry of rap.  But they still kept it street with the “Gustavo” reference and DJ Clue adlibs.  I sincerely take my hat off to these gentlemen who showed that at 48 and 52 the art of Hip Hop can be displayed top tier with precision.  Aw man, the release of this album has made my day.  Thank you Clipse, Pharrell, Nas and all the contributors who’ve made Let GOD Sort Em Out a Hip Hop standout, an instant classic.