Clipse’s ‘The Birds Don’t Sing’ is a masterclass in artistic vulnerability

“Life is tragic simply because the Earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have.”
– James Baldwin

Much has been made about the Clipse’s indomitable rollout for the critically acclaimed Let God Sort Em Out, their first album in 16 years. Beyond the hype and headlines, however, stand two brothers, two Black men from Virginia Beach, who the commonwealth would have typically written off as statistics had they not put their own legendary numbers on the board.

The brothers, Gene and Terrance Thornton, are lyrical snipers and two men whose stories have permeated hip-hop for the better part of the last quarter-century. There’s Terrance aka Pusha T, the extrovert of the duo and torch-bearer of the group, while his older brother, Gene aka Malice, left hip-hop for years to pursue the word of God. That spiritual awakening is at the heart of the duality Malice has grappled with for nearly 20 years. Yet, listening to the brothers speak about their latest project is to understand just how much pain, grief and purpose helped the duo manifest this exact moment.

The opening song on the album, “The Birds Don’t Sing,” immediately became the Virginia Beach duo’s most introspective track in a catalog long detailing life on the streets, America’s War on Drugs, and the survivor’s remorse that such a lifestyle, however glamorous at times, can foster. These were two kids crying out for the parents they lost within a four-month span between November 2021 and March 2022.

Malice and Pusha T didn’t necessarily ask themselves, “Why us?” but instead, “What now?” A palpable vulnerability reverberates in every lyric, drum kick and John Legend’s haunting vocals. But most importantly for me, “The Birds Don’t Sing” allowed me to do something I have yet to do for one reason or another this year: sit with my grandmother’s death.

Death follows an internal compass no one on Earth has access to. Malice confirmed as much on a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast. 

“You always think, as far as death, it’s gonna happen to somebody else; it’s gonna happen at some far-off abstract time. Not in your family,” Malice said. “You know it happens, but to process it. … It wasn’t just once. You think after it happens once, it’s gonna be another long time, but nah, it was like back-to-back. We just thought it was a fitting way to let the fans in on what we have been through.”

Contrary to popular belief, even dope boys have hearts. Malice and Pusha T’s parents, Gene Thornton Sr. and Mildred Thornton, raised them in love and the light of God. As most parents eventually discover, however, there’s only so much that can be done to protect children from the world outside their front door. Anyone remotely familiar with how the streets of the Tidewater area of Virginia operate — simply known as “the 757,” a nod to the area code — knows how much money flows through the underworld there.

The Port of Norfolk is a significant employer of the largely blue-collar working class. It’s also a hub for drugs flowing into and through the area. Pusha and Malice are but two of the many who worked with those ports, even if they never collected a legal paycheck. That same port, too, by proxy, became the inspiration behind so much of the Clipse’s tormented artistry.

“Contrary to popular belief, even dope boys have hearts.”– Justin Tinsley

“My former manager and some good friends’ incarceration forced me to make the most of music. I don’t want their incarceration to be in vain,” Pusha told Complex in 2011. “We owe our family and friends the opportunity to see something better materialize because everything with us went bad.”

In “The Birds Don’t Sing” (which they recently performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), Pusha and Malice peel back the layers of being ghetto children of those ports. Mildred and Gene Sr. never raised their sons to be enmeshed in the drug trade. This is America, though. Sins create sinners every hour of every day, notably when the pursuit of money is the motivation. The love the Thorntons instilled in the Clipse, however, kept their children alive during some of their darkest nights.

As Pusha raps about their mother in “The Birds Don’t Sing,” the remorse in his voice would be beautiful if it weren’t so tragic. Hindsight may be 20/20, but it can also be the world’s sharpest knife. Reflecting on their final conversation, regret haunts Pusha eternally. That he didn’t tell his mother the truth about where he was going for Thanksgiving. That he didn’t fully live in the moment with her. Most importantly, that his son, Nigel Brixx Thornton, won’t know the feeling of his grandmother’s love as he grows older.

I love you met Nige, Pusha raps of his now 5-year-old, hate that he won’t remember you.

Last week, my iPhone reminded me of a picture from December 27, 2024. It’s of my grandmother in her hospice bed, holding both my son and daughter. I haven’t fully processed the emotions that Pusha articulated, knowing my kids won’t remember the woman who initially convinced me that heaven existed on Earth in certain people. But in that picture, my grandmother and her great-grandchildren smile.

Much like Pusha’s verse, that is the beauty of a photograph: even amid pain, it eternally captures joy. One would never know that the night before that photo was taken, my grandmother and I stayed up all night. The dementia she suffered from made it impossible to walk without assistance and ravaged her brain into thinking she had to use the bathroom every 10 minutes. My life started with her changing my diapers. Her life would come to an end with me changing hers.

A month after that photo was taken, my grandmother died. Days before she passed, I had a conversation with my mother, who had finally come to grips with the fact that her mother was hours away from joining my mother’s little brother in the afterlife. Some days are better than others, but my mom, for the most part, has accepted that her Alzheimer’s condition won’t improve.

Moments like not being able to find food my brother or I have delivered to the house — only to have it be in the refrigerator — are sobering. Hearing her cry on the phone about how much she “hates this” is even more so. At best, the endless medication she’s on slows it down, but it never stops moving forward to an end that my mother rages about often.

“Justin, I know one day I’m going to wake up, and I won’t know who my grandchildren are,” she told me. “That scares me more than death. I’m not afraid of death anymore. I’m just afraid of not remembering how to love.”

How does a person respond to that? How does a person tell their own mother things will be OK when neither one of them believes that? Yet, if Pusha’s verse is lamented by contrition, Malice carries a spiritual sense of gratitude that’s needed if a person is ever to find life after death.

“I discovered both of my parents [dead],” Malice revealed on Brian “B.Dot” Miller’s Cover Lines podcast. “My faith and everything that I’ve read from the word of God took over. There was a supernatural sense of peace. There was no time to break down, start crying [or] get out of my mind. … I had a complete sense of peace, and I had to have that peace not only for myself but to deliver the news to my family. God has never let me down, no matter what I have seen or faced in this life.”

That perspective makes his verse on “The Birds Don’t Sing” all the more biblical in a sense. In the Bible, there are prophets and messengers. A select few are both. The same can be said for hip-hop, and Malice is one of those few. Hearing that quote in tandem with his offering on the song is a righteous experience. “Askin’ ‘Should I rap again?’ You gave me your blessing,” Malice rapped, describing the conversation with his dad that made this song, this album and all the discussion around it possible. “The way you spelled it out, there’s a L in every lesson/’Boy, you owe it to the world, let your mess become your message’/ Shared you with my friends, the pops they never had/ You lived for our fishing trips, damn, I had a dad.”

“I’ve never listened to a Clipse album, and my first reaction is on the verge of tears,” Bobby “DJ Cuzzin B” Carter told me days before Let God Sort Em Out dropped. Carter holds one of the most coveted jobs in pop culture, overseeing NPR’s “Tiny Desk” series, which recently featured Clipse. 

“When I listened to ‘Birds Don’t Sing…’, they’ve been in it for this long, and they’re still unveiling layers to who they are and what they’ve been through. It’s the ultimate sign of growth as human beings,” Carter said. “It’s a sigh of relief. Greatness can still be achieved in hip-hop. For an old head like myself in my mid-40s, all isn’t lost. When you listen to the very first song on the album, you hear Pusha and Malice in a way you’ve never heard before. Your jaw drops. You don’t get too many jaw-dropping moments anymore, so when they happen, you appreciate them in a really personal way.”

Personal. When Malice talks about their father gladly working double shifts just to keep food on their plates and lights on in their house, that’s personal. When Malice talks about the pain his father felt finding dope in his house and how that moment is forever part of Malice’s story, that’s personal. Nevertheless, the one line in the song that moved me to tears is Malice’s last.

“Birds don’t sing if the words don’t sting/ Your last few words in my ear still ring/You told me that you loved me, it was all in your tone/’I love my two sons’ was the code to your phone, now you’re gone.“

Since my grandmother passed in January, I’ve gone through countless pages of paperwork. Closing out an insurance policy here, paying final expenses there. It all becomes mundane over time. Now and then, though, she talks to me. Last month, I spoke to my grandmother in a dream. I don’t remember much else except for hearing her voice. She was happy. She was with my uncle again. I apologized for the facilities she was in and out of the final weeks of her life, and that I missed her something crazy. I didn’t see her, but I heard her. 

“I love you, too, baby. So, so much. I wasn’t happy those last few weeks, but now I am,” she told me in my dream. “Just please take care of your mom. I’ll come get her when it’s time.” 

In a few weeks, my mom will be moving in with me, my wife, and our kids. It’s a lifestyle change I’m still unsure about, but there’s no other option. We have to take care of her. I have to take care of her. This is the one person who has known me longer than I’ve known myself. But Malice’s line about the phone code hit home because years ago, when I first noticed my mom’s condition beginning to deteriorate, I changed her passwords for many of her accounts. Much like Malice’s dad, my mom’s passwords were some iteration of “I love my family” or “I love my boys,” referring to my younger brother and me.

“The Birds Don’t Sing” is a heartbeat in lyrical form. It’s two men, now parents in their own right, calling out for their parents. It’s an equal blend of “I’m sorry,” “Thank you,” and “I love you.” In a recent chat with Interview magazine, the brothers reflected on the taxing nature of producing the song and what they hoped the masses would take from it. For Pusha, it was the hardest verse he ever wrote. Flipping through a mental Rolodex of memories was gutwrenching, he reflected. As for Malice, the sentiment was similar. Much like I’ve always felt with my mother and grandmother, there’s a deep sense of responsibility that comes with sharing them with the world. There’s a trust in showing how human they are, but never backing down from how grateful I am that God chose them for me. This was also Malice and Pusha’s sole intention.

“Everyone is familiar with loss of some sort,” Malice said, “and hopefully this can serve as healing for them as well.”

If grief is the cost of real love, then memories of my grandma, my mother and Pusha and Malice’s parents are part of life’s most valuable currency. An eagerness lives in my soul to play this song for my mother when she moves in with us in a few weeks. And, if I’m lucky, my grandmother and I can do the same whenever she revisits me in my dreams again.