Fair warning: Clipse set to destroy you

"From ghetto to ghetto, backyard to yard
I sell it whip to whip, it's off the hard
I'm the neighborhood pusha
Call me subwoofer, 'cause I pump base like that, Jack" -- Pusha T, "Grindin'"

I still remember the first time I heard "Grindin'" on MTV. The backing track started as just claps, but then it didn't build from there. The entire song was built on handclaps, like a back-alley freestyle battle or something. Then Pusha starts rapping and I stopped everything else I was doing. Here were two cousins -- just kids, really -- from Virginia changing how I looked at hip hop in the course of one music video. The year was 2002.

"Seem like they all got a comment to make
In regards to my paper, now they guessin' my weight
They fast to predict the outcome of my fate
Wonderin' 'bout Clipse and if they got what it take
Malice, he think he hard, tough guy of the clique
And Pusha, he walk around like he swear he the shit
You right on both counts, bitch, Clipse is us." -- Malice, "Virginia"

That album, "Lord Willin'", also changed the way I looked at hip hop. In a time when nearly every rapper was releasing bloated 20-plus-track albums (and in some cases, double LPs) with scads of "skits" and "interludes" (code for filler, really), Clipse released 13 tracks. No skits. No filler. And other than the obligatory Pharrell Williams guest spots (The Neptunes executive produced the album), there were no cameos. Just Pusha, just Malice, just hard-hitting, well-crafted hip hop. No filler whatsoever. Was the album perfect? No, but upon repeated listens, you could tell it was honed with care into a singular vision. That vision? Apparently, we're the Clipse and we got rich off selling coke, so who cares if you like our rapping, we're already made.

"The night's still young and I'm already leanin'
Cruise through the lot on the deuce-2's gleamin'
The liquor in me and I don't need a reason
Obnoxious with the women, hot tucked in the linen." -- Malice, "When The Last Time"

Fast forward four years, through the cavalcade of me-too coke-financed pushers-turned-rappers, through Jay-Z's retirement and unretirement, and here we are, on the eve of Clipse's new and oft-delayed album, "Hell Hath No Fury." I've had the privilege of hearing the entire album already and I have no qualms in saying this will be the hip hop album of 2006. By a long shot. On Nov. 28, the genre is going to quake and shiver with the weight of this thing. I turned on the first track -- the FIRST TRACK -- and the utter density of this beat smushed a stupid grin onto my face. That grin didn't leave for the next 11 tracks.

"I got the wamp wamp when I move it it's still damp
Mildew-ish when I heat it, it turn bluish
It cools to a tight wad, the Pyrex is Jewish
I get paper, it seems I get foolish
Take it to Jacob and play Which Hues the Bluest?" -- Malice, "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)

Ugh, it's so sick. The Neptunes signed up again for the beat-making duties. But in the four years since "Lord Willin'" Pusha and Malice have adopted a few other rappers of fine pedigree into a larger collective called the Re-Up Gang, so there are a few more guest spots. I know I can't do this thing justice. I can't even begin. But I'll just say this is advanced rap. This is graduate-level street-hop. Not for the weak of heart. Please use with caution. May cause incredible feelings of beat-related euphoria and lyric-induced giddiness.