Saturday, August 16, 2008

Rehash Gang

Mixtapes have made studio rap albums filled with fresh, unheard content a nearly extinct concept. That isn't really news, considering the idea of a mixtape has generally been to promote an upcoming album by giving listeners a taste. This hopefully leaves listeners fiending enough for the finished product that they'll go plunk down the money for the actual album instead of stealing it online before regulating it to external harddrive hell without ever really listening to the damn thing.

On the surface, this isn't a bad practice. Mixtapes are typically raw affairs, laced with filler, truncated songs and in most cases, the mixtape "host" stamping his vocal watermark all over the place. But they serve their purpose by giving the listener an idea of what they can expect from the studio album.

The caveat with mixtapes and the albums they promote is when there's so much overlapping content that the album feels like a retread. Everyone's favorite drug-slanging, hip-hop brothers from Virginia, Clipse, and their proteges Ab-Liva and Sandman, collectively known as the Re-Up Gang, man these choppy waters on the foursome's first album proper Clipse Presents Re-Up Gang.


Anyone who's even vaguely familiar with the group is aware of their We Got It 4 Cheap series, a trio of mixtapes that could give the bulk of today's rap albums a run for their millis. Though the majority of these efforts featured the rappers rhyming over other artist's beats, the series nevertheless became online favorites. And why not? The group took some of the sickest beats of recent vintage and vastly improved on the original artist's often sub-par lyrics.

Re-Up Gang added the third installment of the series this past Super Bowl Sunday. Again, the majority of the production used for the mixtape had its origins outside of the Re-Up camp. The foursome's clever wordplay, lyrical dexterity and general bravado overrode this fact. The end result was an effort that felt more like a studio album than something fans were encouraged to download online.

All of this considered, it was welcome news to learn that not only would the third Clipse album be dropping into stores this fall, but Re-Up's first studio album would hit the shelves late in the summer to tide eager fans over. One listen to Clipse Presents Re-Up Gang, however, leaves you wondering why they even bothered with the release. The content isn't bad. On the contrary, it's quite strong. About as strong as it was when we heard the majority of it on We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 3.

Now, Clipse aren't strangers to recycling bits and pieces from mixtapes. Steady followers of the group probably recognized quite a few verses on Hell Hath No Fury from mixtapes prior to its release. But again, this is pretty common practice in the mixtape realm. Re-Up Gang makes liberal use of this understanding, though.

Of the 12 tracks on the album, only a handful seem to offer anything new in the way of lyrical content. It's not just a spare verse here and there; entire songs from the third volume of the We Got It 4 Cheap series appear on the album, under the guise of allegedly new tracks thanks to renaming and different production.

And maybe it's that new production that makes this case of excessive lyrical recycling unforgivable. The aptly dubbed Sleepwalkers bear the brunt of the production duties. If nothing else, their lethargic work makes the likes of Timbaland look better, as it provides evidence to the school of thought that slabbing a bunch of synths over a bassline isn't always a recipe for an instant hit.

Though Malice and Pusha T have shown an ability to sound impressive with virtually any beat they choose to rap over, Ab-Liva and Sandman seem to really shine when backed by uptempo production. The pair's rhymes sound clunky and out of place when backed by the musical stylings of the Sleepwalkers. "We Know," one of the album's lone musical bright spots reuses the foursome's vocals from "Dey Know Yayo," a track that originally used Shawty-Lo's horn-filled "Dey Know" as its musical backdrop. It's no coincidence that the Sleepwalkers' lone aggressive, quick-tempo contribution allows all four members of Re-Up Gang to thrive with their verses.

An ability to command attention even in spite of the occasionally weak beat has been one of Clipse's strengths since breaking into the game. Clipse Presents Re-Up Gang, though, raises some quality concerns about their third studio album, now that the duo and The Neptunes have opted to turn their marriage into something of an open relationship. Even after The Neptunes fell into a phase of churning out mostly uninspired material, their chemistry with Clipse never took a hit. If Clipse Presents Re-Up Gang is any indication, Clipse may want to consider once again making that relationship with The Neptunes a monogamous pairing.