Clipse

Clipse --Virginia Beach siblings Malice and Pusha-T --began rhyming in the mid-'90s, back when they were high school friends with Pharrell Wil-liams and Chad Hugo. After a 1998 album, Exclusive Audio Footage, went unreleased, their future seemed uncertain --until Williams and Hugo, a.k.a. super-producers the Neptunes, came to the rescue. Lord Willin' is unrepentant playa-rap, a guided tour of a day in the life of a coke dealer. Though the duo's matter-of-fact delivery is hardly original --Mobb Deep is an obvious influence --they offer so much gripping detail and action-packed forward motion it doesn't matter. And the Neptunes' beats never miss, from the ravey, tuned-static synth hook of "When the Last Time" to the grunting James Brown sax of "Young Boy" to the shockingly austere drum-theory-as-groove of "Grindin'." It's the most consistent, and best, album they've ever produced. (MICHAELANGELO MATOS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide