Clipse and Kanye West Reveal "Kinda Like a Big Deal" Video

Virginia rap duo Clipse have premiered their new video for "Kinda Like a Big Deal," featuring Kanye West. The track is the first single off Clipse's oft-delayed third album Till the Casket Drops, due out later this year. The video, directed by Bernard Gourley (Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's) and filmed at a Brooklyn apartment complex, is simple yet gritty, with the three rappers just hanging out on stairwells and elevators doing their verses as empty bullet casings bounce on the tiled floor. Still, we're just happy to see the duo rapping in music videos again after a three-year wait following 2006's Hell Hath No Fury.

"Kinda Like a Big Deal" was produced by DJ Khalil, which marks the first time Clipse have navigated away from their favorite producers the Neptunes in search of a hit single. After legal delays and an acrimonious 2006 split from Jive Records — the Clipse said they wanted to "lynch" everyone working there — the pair will likely finally release their much-anticipated third album in the early fall. The album will reportedly feature some production by the Neptunes (potential second single "I'm Good" features Pharrell), Kanye and Rick Rubin, who was recently photographed hanging out with Clipse, Pitchfork reported.

In December 2008, Clipse's Malice and Pusha T dropped a mix tape called Road to Till the Casket Drops, which featured the brothers rapping over tracks by Lupe Fiasco, the Game and T.I., plus their take on "Swagga Like Us." The mixtape was released in conjunction with Clipse's new clothing label Play Cloths. The duo has also been heavily involved with their Virginia rap collective Re-Up Gang in the years since Hell Hath, releasing the third volume of in the We Got it 4 Cheap mixtape series.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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