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Clipse — \”Intro\”

(Courtesy Complex.com.)

Label drama just goes hand-in-hand with Virginia-born hip hop duo Clipse. To anyone who’s followed the top-shelf rap group over the years, last week’s news that the release date for the pair’s third LP (Till the Casket Drops) is being pushed back till next March came as no surprise. The guys’ previous studio album, Hell Hath No Fury, spent years in label-reshuffle purgatory before finally hitting the streets two years ago. Frustrated with the way Jive treated them, and faced with disappointing sales numbers for Fury, Clipse signed with Columbia Records last year, and I honestly thought everything would go smoothly from there.

Turns out, not so much.

Luckily, no label can block a mixtape, and Clipse consistently releases some of the finest unofficial albums you’re going to find in the hip hop world. The duo’s We Got it 4 Cheap series is now three excellent volumes deep, and next Monday, we get treated to Play Cloths Presents: Road to Till the Casket Drops. Few details about the tape have leaked yet, but the site hosting it, Complex.com, is offering up a free stream and download of the album’s opening track.

“Intro” isn’t much of a departure for Clipse — which is most definitely a good thing.

We get plenty of drug talk: “It’s the ‘hood’s Obama, shoveling Mc-’caine / Out the project windows, the drama’s insane.” We also get plenty of inside-baseball rap talk: “The message got twisted / I’m just young black and gifted / The theme was coke, but the lines was uplifting / On my road to the riches with the bitches and the cars / It ain’t hard to tell we cant all be Nas / The truth really is we can’t all be stars / But I’ll be Goddamned if I settle for Pras.” The beat is ripped from Fabolous’ 2007 track “Gangsta Don’t Play,” and features a vocal turn from reggae’s Junior Reid, whom you might remember from Wu-Tang Clan’s 2000 disc, The W. The tune is a mid-tempo, organ-drenched stomper, a perfect match for Clipse’s defiant bars.

Yeah, it sucks we have to wait till March for to see the Casket drop, but — if “Intro” is any indication — Road To should be a nice free stocking-stuffer to hold us over till springtime.

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