Clipse: "Warning (f/ Rock City)"

Like tweens writhing in anticipation for further Twilight installments, Clipse fans—as numerous and as fervid as any fantasy film fanbase you’d care to name—find the wait for Till The Casket Drops virtually intolerable. And so we hungrily devour each pre-release plum, be it sweet or cold, and then greedily ask for more. We are, I think, insatiable, and so even “Warning,” neither a Till The Casket Drops cut nor even a genuine Clipse jam (the internet tells me it’s to be found on an upcoming release from producers of the track, the Synth), is cause enough for commotion. So starved are we that even Clipse crumbs are kinda like a big deal.

“Warning”‘s crumbs, it turns out, can hardly sustain, though as a fleeting taste it could be worse. The Synth can’t provide production of a caliber to which Clipse must at this point be accustomed (not that they need Pharrell and Chad, mind; Khalil delivered on “Kinda Like A Big Deal”), but Malice and Pusha T sound tight in most any context, and this somewhat tepid club beat is no exception. And so they, along with Rock City, rap about what they’re typically given to rap about: old movies, young girls, swagger, being “real,” and new cars. It’s a decent and (I guess) lighthearted track, one that very sorely lacks the edge of, say, “Trill” or “Keys Open Doors.” And perhaps the drama is missed, but the math is simple: “Warning” is better than “I’m Good” but worse than “Kinda Like A Big Deal”; it’s not on Till The Casket Drops, but it doesn’t matter because, shit, it’s a new Clipse song.

We’ve got a lot invested in Pusha and Malice, and so the tension in waiting for Casket is as much wrapped up in trepidation as thrill. It’s not simply that Hell Hath No Fury (2006) set the bar intimidatingly high, but that, in typical Clipse fashion, they dedicated the bulk of the Road To Till The Casket Drops (2008) mixtape to riffing on just how amazing the upcoming LP is gonna be. Heavy hangs the head, etc. etc., but when the Thorton boys pontificate brazenly about redefining “classic” (I thought they already did), adamantly dispelling the very notion that they would or even could falter, it’s easy to believe that it really will be a Clipse ’09.