Though it'll always be a very distant second to coke-pushing, one narrative surrounding Clipse prior to their 2006 breakthrough Hell Hath No Fury was the duo's underdog status. But after years of being denied should-have-been fame and fortune, Malice and Pusha T are now in a sweet position not unlike that of, oddly enough, the Roots-- a cozy label deal, almost unconditional internet love, and slots on typically indie playlists. With the turn of 2008 came the We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 3 mixtape, but without much to complain about, Clipse turned to fabricating "spirit of competition" subliminals against Lil Wayne which backfired when the critical and commercial success of Tha Carter III proved that Weezy's fanbase not only included the critics who fawned over Hell Hath No Fury, but also an additional million people who don't mind paying for their music.
If there's anything that tends to deflate Clipse's infallible guise, it's an awareness of this very situation-- check the sneering admission on "Re-Up Gang Intro" that "Writers scream 'More!'/ Yet they don't run to the store.../ To write a verse is like a chore." However real that writer's block is, The Clipse Presents: Re-Up Gang improves upon Vol. 3 in that it contains actual conflict: a clash of Re-Up's modest merits with its reasons for existence. We're strictly "Stans only" here, considering the mixtape's stopgap timing and limited commercial prospects. And yet, as evidenced by the numbingly iced-out single "Fast Life", too much of Re-Up Gang is done in the style of Lord Willin's baffling Jermaine Dupri collaboration "Let's Talk About It"-- a track I imagine most of Clipse's current fanbase absolutely loathes.
The problem here is that the egalitarian make-up of Re-Up Gang means half of the record is taken up by Ab-Liva and Sandman (still doing that "cannnnnn-on" thing before every verse, thanks for asking), who need no introduction, and are pretty much without peer when it comes to subsidiary foot soldiering. Really, though, they've got enough trouble distinguishing themselves from one another, let alone coming close to stealing any track they share with the Thorntons (what, Rosco P. Coldchain was busy?). As a result, Re-Up Gang is sort of like going out for a nice meal and filling up on bread.
Beyond that, well... this is the Koch release. I mean, "Grindin'", "Hello New World", and pretty much the entirety of We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 proved Clipse know good beats, so you can't expect anyone's A-game on these Dre carbon copies, with drums that knock like first-gen ringtones. Though not "dense" in the Def Jux sense of the word, Clipse's flows, jam-packed with quotables as they are, require attention and room to breathe*.* Nothing here could possibly bring out the best in Re-Up-- not "Money" (the hook-- "money, money, money, money, money-- give me some!" in chickenhead patois), not the interminable yo-yo flows on "We Know", and definitely not the flatulent buckshots that pockmark "Bring It Back", which sounds like Dipset's house producers asleep at the EQ.
A line on the faux-cover of Jim Jones' "Emotionless" (reprised from Vol. 3 with a new beat) goes, "I'm empty inside like Hollow Man/ I'm here but I'm not, like a hologram." If the first part of that quote played an integral role in the tundraic heartlessness of Hell Hath No Fury, the latter is more indicative of the ghost-in-the-machine feel of Re-Up Gang, which basically amounts to Koch's attempt to wring legal tender out of Vol. 3 (good luck with that). With the already announced (and already pushed-back) Clipse album Til the Casket Drops on the way, it's likely Clipse know better than to waste their best material on this format.
