The first time I heard Let God Sort Them Out, Clipse’s long-awaited reunion album, I didn’t expect it to feel like church. Yet there I was — nodding along to Pharrell’s sinister snares and icy synths, letting Pusha T’s relentless confidence and Malice’s quiet conviction wash over me like a sermon. On the surface, the album is everything we’ve come to expect from Clipse: coke rap at its finest — sharp bars, high stakes, hustler parables. But beneath the flash, it’s about something deeper: survival. Faith. And the discipline to keep moving even when the world is heavy. At a time where I am mourning more than I care to admit and doubting my own ability to create anything meaningful again, this album — and cocaine rap itself — reminded me who I was. And who I still could be.

If you are unfamiliar with Clipse and want to get a taste of their discography , please check out the This Is Culturally Inappropriate playlist curated by our gracious internet cousin, MusicMan817

Grief: The Hustle Doesn’t StopGrief is a strange kind of quiet. It makes everything feel heavier. My mornings dragged. My notebooks stayed blank. I thought the weight would crush me. But on The Birds Don’t Sing, Clipse put words to that silence: “You were checkin’ boxes, I was checkin’ my mentions.” It hit me how much we distract ourselves from what we’re feeling — scrolling, overworking, numbing — instead of naming the pain and moving with it. Clipse have always rapped about carrying weight, literally and metaphorically. You don’t have to glamorize the hustle to understand the lesson: you can cry while you count, mourn while you move. Hearing them rhyme about loss, family, and regret over Pharrell’s haunting production made me feel less alone in my sadness. It reminded me grief is part of the story — not the end of it.

Faith: Let God Sort Them Out The title track stopped me cold. On it, Malice leans into his faith fully, his voice calm and clear as he raps: “I plant my seed in dark soil, heaven takes the count.” That line stayed with me. Because that’s what faith is, isn’t it? Planting seeds in the dark, not knowing if they’ll bloom. Trusting that something bigger than you will take care of what you can’t control. As someone who likes to plan and fix everything, I needed to hear that. Faith doesn’t always look like bright lights and answered prayers. Sometimes it looks like showing up to the page, or the meeting, or the gym, even when nothing seems to be working yet — and trusting that’s enough. Then came another lyric, sharp and simple: “So be it, Smoke.” That’s the surrender I’ve been practicing — not fighting what is. Meeting whatever comes — grief, growth, or grind — with calm confidence. So be it. This duo reminded me that surrender isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom. It’s letting God sort them out.

Coming Back Free Malice’s presence on this album hit me in a different way. After all these years away from the spotlight — years spent wrestling with his faith, stepping out of the game, and choosing peace over fame — his voice doesn’t sound rusty. It sounds liberated. On Let God Sort Them Out, you can feel the weight he’s dropped. He’s not just back — he’s back on his terms. That’s a kind of freedom you can’t fake. It made me think about how hard it is to step away from what people expect of you. To go quiet and deal with yourself. To choose stillness and growth, even when it looks like you’re losing. And it reminded me how powerful it feels when you finally come back — sharper, clearer, and more aligned. Malice’s verses don’t sound like a comeback hungry for approval. They sound like someone who got free and wants to show you what that sounds like. That motivated me to keep doing my own inner work. To get free from the grief, the doubt, the old patterns — so when it’s my time to come back, I can do it with that same quiet power.

Grieve. Believe. Build. Come Back Free. That’s what Clipse showed me through their album “Let God Sort Them Out”: • Grieve, but don’t quit. • Believe, even when it’s dark. • Build, even when it’s heavy. • And when you’re ready — come back free. True rap, at its best, is about more than drugs and danger. It’s about survival and audacity. It’s about finding beauty in the grit and trusting the grind to get you through. So when the days feel too long, when the work feels pointless, when the stress of grief, the stress of the world threatens to swallow me whole — I listen to music to remind me who the fuck I am, sometimes it’s Broadway, sometimes It’s Celine Dion. But today, I listen to FICO. Today, needed to remember the lessons in So Be It.. I let Ace Trumpets remind me it’s okay to shine again. And I remember Malice — stepping back into the booth after all these years, no longer trying to prove anything, just showing what freedom sounds like. So I keep planting seeds in the dark. Because heaven takes the count.✨ Want more?

I turned my favorite lyrics from this album into a Notion dashboard of affirmations you can claim for yourself — reflections on grief, faith, growth, and hustle. Check them out here ➝