Clipse is the second best rap duo of all time and the authors of my favorite rap album, Lord Willin’, which is just over a decade old. I had a professor tell me you can’t write with clarity about a traumatic event until ten years after, and while that's definitely bullshit, the theory does apply to dope shit like discovering the true glory of double entendres and growing out of the naive opinion that cocaine is a bad thing that should be avoided before realizing cocaine is awesome and should be done by everybody all the time.
Really though, in the past decade or so, the Thornton brothers have provided a ton of life advice, so one would assume that their fashion wisdom would also endure. Clipse rose to prominence in an era that saw '90s boom brands like Phat Farm, FUBU and Rocawear collapse quietly into themselves, or at least recede to department store shelves. In their place, Japanese-rooted niche streetwear brands rose to prominence and through the lens of Clipse lyrics we are made privy to the highs and lows of succeeding during such a time. Sure, that sounds like superfluous bullshit, but if Four Pins is ever going to become the Grantland of menswear, we’re going to need hella white dudes philosophizing about rap. With that, let’s mine the stylistic minds of Push and Mal, though, in an effort of full disclosure, Malice doesn't really ever rap about his gear.
Angelo Spagnolo is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. Read his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.