Long way home
Shingo brings a Japanese sensibility to the American hip-hop he grew up on.
By Mosi Reeves

Off the hard
The Clipse shock but don't surprise.
By Jeff Chang

Correct Techniques
The usual.
By Mosi Reeves

Off the hard

The Clipse shock but don't surprise.

By Jeff Chang

THE CLIPSE SEEM to present contradictions worthy of a novelist, or at least a Marxist-Leninist. The bruzz Thornton, Pusha T and Malice, kick hardcore drug-selling rap on a disc produced by the Neptunes, chrome BMX riders better known for glitzing up Mystikal, N.O.R.E., and Jay-Z and stripping down Sade, Janet, and Britney. In a summer of slick N.Y. hip-pop, these slim Virginians are dominating urban airwaves with a raw '87 Westside sound. They act realer than real – "true to the game for 9 innings," as Malice has put it – but they shout out Justin Timberlake and haven't hesitated to rap for Nelly Furtado and the Backstreet Boys.

They made their rep on one 2002-eternal single. The initial glory of "Grindin' " was that it seemed to come from nowhere. Released early this year with virtually no buzz, the track seemed to rise up from the streets of the Atlantic seaboard along with the spring temperatures. In this late period of hip-hop, when every artist with a deal seems to be either a relative or a close acquaintance of another rich and famous rapper and when the record industry spends millions to fight off surprises, the Clipse were a mystery.

In 1987 "Grindin' " would have been relegated to cassette-deck trunk-thumpers rolling up Telegraph or down Lakeshore, or to a weekend spin that would have been lighting up the phones at Marcus Clemons's show on KPOO-FM. Back then it was a shock to hear Toddy Tee or Ice T disclosing the dirty secrets of cocaine slingers. (Many a liberal defense would frame such lyrics – which had somehow shifted in focus from rocking the boroughs to merely shifting rocks – as a knowing commentary on predatory Reaganomics.) You felt the risk those rappers were taking like the hairs on the back of your neck. You were inexorably drawn in. Even if you couldn't relate to the hustle, you wanted to. You wanted to flood the request lines for "The Batteram" and "Six in the Morning"; you wanted them to sell a million copies because you were sure they would never get played on the radio or stocked in stores. Hardness was strangely vulnerable back then.

"Grindin' " 's hollow beat-appella production left little to grab but Pusha T and Malice's story, which they inscrutably bookended with apologies. "Sorry my love," Pusha T says, before talking "Benz convoys and Gucci Chuck Taylors with the dragons on the side" like he's just experienced the hustler's equivalent of a Virgin Mary sighting. "So much dough, I can't swear I won't change," the more earthbound Malice declares.

"Grindin'," as the soon-to-be-unmasked Neptunes' Pharrell Williams promised, proposed to be something that had never been felt before. Its off-the-hard shockability lay in its utter intransigence, its stone heartlessness, in the congealed cruelty of the boast. It was the scariest record on the airwaves in 15 years. This was no social reportage, no political signifying. It was a confidence game, emphasis on game. Amid all the staged fakery that passes for hip-hop these days, the Clipse played their position by standing up like they were the real thing – nobodies from nowhere with a story to tell against indelible beats.

But now Lord Willin' – there it is again, the false humility, which Malice finally dissolves by rapping, "Humble gets no respect," because where else can respect come from but stacking money and flexing power? – is here. Backed by a full clip of state-of-the-art 'Tunes, Pusha T and Malice reveal themselves to be 'caine-cooking, cartoon-watching, Caribbean-loving, Rakim-quoting, gold rim-coveting, death-worshipping youngins. And truth be told, what chart-topping rappers these days – Nas, Cam'ron, N.O.R.E. – aren't? "Excuse me if my wealth got me full of myself," Malice says.

"Cocky is something I just can't help." Fifteen years from '87, there's nary an irony or worry in the Clipse – just a lot of airplay and units shifting. If you wanted to be Stanley Crouch about it, you might lament the decline. If you're like me, you might feel nostalgic (with the requisite ambivalence) for real hustlers like Eazy E. Whatever; it's hard not to gasp at the distance hip-hop has traveled. After Toddy Tee first cut "The Batteram" on his home-studio four-track, he hit the street daily for a legal kind of grind, returning every night to fire up his overheated tape-dubbing deck. Fifteen years later, Pusha T gets to sneer for his promo glossy from inside a multimillion-dollar studio, while Arista is under contract to the Neptunes to handle worldwide duplication duties.

"Grindin' " 's story now boils down to a single banal truth on which all the money rests: it was the leadoff single to the first album on the Neptunes' vanity label, Star Trak. Now you too are in on the game. (Bonus clue: At the beginning of "When the Last Time," the second single, the Clipse offer a proper echo-laden intro to the label.) The Neptunes don't hold top-10 money with a vise grip for nothing. They somehow made a calculation – '80s crack nostalgia plus blank boom-ba-boom beats plus underdog love equals paper stacks. You finally understand the Clipse's Teflon confidence. You marvel at the math. Or maybe you feel a little cheap and dirty. Maybe you are the contradiction.

Lord Willin' reps the state of pop. There are no cracks on its surface. You get a strip-and-shake hit ("When the Last Time") to shoot some chart heat behind Nelly, a horny kiddie-funk bump ("Young Boy") for the backpackers, a represent-my-home piece ("Virginia") to establish their street bonafides, a bunch of synergistic and strategic cameos, and remixes (complete with yard-to-yard global appeal from Sean Paul and Kardinal Offishal on "Grindin' (Selector Remix)." It goes down easy, like taking a breath. Contradictions melt away. The high is predictable. It obeys the laws of science. It diminishes over time. But you loop back to the spot like it's the only cipher you know how to close. You know, and they know, exactly what they keep in the lining. Better stay in line, then, and buy two more for your cousins.