The phrase doesn’t apply in all situations, but keys have opened doors for the Clipse, a cocaine-oriented hip-hop duo that, by some alchemy, managed to combine every designer-drug-seller cliché in the book …a nd still produce one of the most avant-garde albums of 2006. Lest you doubt the group’s hipster appeal, look no further than the “best of” charts on Pitchfork, or the December 25 issue of The New Yorker Magazine, in which pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones gave emcees Pusha-T and Malice a first-rate rim job. By combining romantic conceptions of punk music (lo-fi instrumentation, minimalist, garage-sounding beats, and videos that look like they were filmed in front of a green screen) with gangsta rap’s fantasy of class ascent (Benjamins, Cavalli furs, a new Benz) the Clipse found favor with people on both sides of the tracks — fickle fourteen-year-old radio-listeners and effete armchair critics who probably own all of the Stones Throw twelve inches. Click here to watch the video for this group’s single “Mr. Me Too.” – Rachel Swan
.MP3 of the Day: The Clipse’s “Mr. Me Too”
