After infinite delays and setbacks, Virginia drug-rap duo Clipse finally dropped their sophomore album, Hell Hath No Fury, in November; the record was drooled over by critics, but ignored by most record buyers. Pusha T and Malice are wasting no time bemoaning their fate, though; they're too busy working on a straight-to-DVD movie and recording the next volume of their excellent We Got It 4 Cheap mixtape series. We talked with Pusha to find out how he feels about being a critics' darling, and whose beats ain't worth his time.
Blender: Hell Hath No Fury seems to be on every year-end best albums list out there. You're like the Bob Dylan of crack-rap...
Pusha T: That's all we been banking on the whole time. Praise is always good. I'm not one of those artist who doesn't watch TV or read magazines. You know how artists try to act so oblivious to everything? Tell 'em that Pusha said they're fucking lying!
Blender: The acclaim hasn't exactly translated into sales, though, has it?
Pusha T: Sales suck [note: Hell Hath No Fury has only sold about 150,000 copies to date]. There are certain things that must occur for you to be successful as a hip-hop artist like street awareness, television and radio. All those things were lacking for us.
Blender: Tell us about the movie you guys are working on.
Pusha T: It's a DVD movie musical, kinda like what Jay-Z and Dame Dash did with Streets Is Watching. It's going to be nine vignettes with a storyline about the Clipse--like how everything was great in 2002 and then it crashed, all the way up to the present. It shows how you can't control this music game, the shit is a monster of its own.
Blender: Are you going to be doing a lot of acting?
Pusha T: There will be a storyline but I don't know about acting. I don't profess to be a thespian or anything.
Blender: And you're working on a new mixtape, right?
Pusha T: Yeah, I'm in the studio right now working on it. It's titled We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 3: The Spirit of Competition--We Just Think We Better. That's the theme--we just think we're better than every other crew out there. I thought all those fourth quarter rap albums were going to unleash some beats that we were gonna be able to jack and rhyme crazy over. But the beats suck! I'm not about to ride over [Lil Wayne and Birdman's] "Stuntin' Like My Daddy." This isn't playtime for me
