Key Takeaways:
- The rollout for Let God Sort Em Out reflects Clipse’s commitment to authenticity and long-term vision.
- “The Birds Don’t Sing” was shaped by personal grief, offering a raw entry point into the album.
- Clipse prioritized meaningful platforms and conversations over viral moments in their album rollout strategy.
Clipse’s comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out, was already making waves in Hip Hop before its official release on July 11. The 13-track project marks a powerful return to rap for the duo — real-life brothers Pusha T and Malice — reuniting on wax after a 16-year hiatus.
The intention was evident in the social media posts that began in May and in the calculated release of interviews, cover stories, and performances. Social media lit up with praise for Clipse’s return, calling it a revival of music journalism’s golden era. See for yourself in the tweets below.
“We’ve been everywhere, but we’ve been with the real too… I think that’s [why] a lot of people keep talking about the rollout and how good the rollout is and so on and so forth, but you gotta realize the rollout is just us talking to real journalists,” Pusha explained in a new interview for “Big Boy’s Neighborhood” on Friday (July 18).
The sharp-tongued lyricist further elaborated, noting that a clickbait strategy was never in the plan. “I wasn’t gonna, like, bring my brother and have him just sitting down with anybody either… This ain’t what we're here for. This album wasn’t for that either,” he declared. That tone is clear with the album’s opening track, “The Birds Don’t Sing.”
Pusha T breaks down the meaning behind “The Birds Don’t Sing”
“I remember one night, Pharrell [Williams was] calling me after my mom had passed, our mom had passed, and he was like, ‘...You gotta write about it.’ He was like, ‘I got this idea. It’s called the birds don’t sing; they screech in pain’... It came from a conversation we were having just about her and everything she was going through,” he explained to Big Boy.
In the verses, he reflects on their mother, while Malice recalls his last conversation with their father. They passed away four months apart from each other, she first in November 2021 and he in March 2022. Pusha wrote his lyrics and then sent them to his brother. Malice admitted, “I didn’t know how I was going to be able to finish ‘cause just listening, I understood everything that he was saying… It like punched me in the face so hard.”
Clipse’s emotional performances of “The Birds Don’t Sing” reflect deep loss that is painful to revisit
“It’s solemn every time you perform that. It’s definitely like, it’s solemn,” explained Malice about the emotionally charged live performances. “People remind you that it’s solemn ‘cause they be crying every time,” quipped Pusha. “And then the pictures don’t help none. I hope we don’t have to perform that ever again,” remarked his older brother. To date, Clipse have performed it for their NPR “Tiny Desk” set and as a tear-jerking tribute to their parents, complete with a video montage of family photos as their backdrop, on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
With Let God Sort Em Out, they’ve proven that real stories still cut through the noise. Clipse isn’t chasing fads; the brothers are delivering on the promise that authentic music is preserving their legacy and Hip Hop.