Clipse Get Their Bumpy Face On

Watching Clipse perform at B.B. King’s last night, we remembered how excited we were when the Virginia-based crew’s long-delayed Hell Hath No Fury finally came out in 2006. Four years in the making, and plagued with record label drama, it was easily one of the most anticipated rap albums in recent memory — a gritty, Neptunes-produced breakthrough that many called Record of the Year. But now that Pusha-T and Malice have already made their triumphant return, something felt off. Maybe it was the businessmen casually eating hamburgers while Clipse played “Wamp Wamp (What It Do).� Or maybe it was the Seagram’s trivia projected on the wall. (Who knew “bumpy face� is a slang term for gin?) Or the man in the Clipse apron who handed us a grocery bag full of promotional junk. Our eyes lit up, though, when we saw a flier for R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13–22, coming this summer. As Clipse played “Grindin’,� all we could think about was the fate of Closet’s hero, Sylvester. Clipse’s saga seems to have reached a conclusion, but Trapped in the Closet isn’t over yet. — Mike Bilandic

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