A Kendrick Lamar verse is the reason Clipse and Pusha T are no longer signed to Def Jam.
The Virginia duo is easing the pain of human existence in 2025 with the release of a new album, Let God Sort Em Out, in July. The album was expected to drop last year after they signed a deal with Def Jam, the same label behind Pusha T‘s solo albums. But now, the Pharrell-produced album will instead be released through a partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
Pusha also confirmed that manager Steven Victor paid “7 figures” to get out of the deal after Billboard reported on the amount.
The circumstances surrounding this shift, which also affects Push’s solo deal, are detailed in a must-read GQ feature penned Complex alum Frazier Tharpe. As Push himself explained in the piece, what set this pivotal change in motion was a guest verse from Kendrick Lamar.
Here’s the gist of what went down, per Push: He and Malice were expecting to release their new album, their first in over 15 years, with Def Jam excited about what they were hearing. Kendrick’s appearance on the track “Chains & Whips,” however, is said to have spurred concern at the Universal Music Group-owned label due to both Push and Kendrick’s well-documented Drake issues. Drake, himself under the larger UMG umbrella, ultimately took legal action against the corporation in connection with Kendrick’s Grammys-sweeping “Not Like Us” diss.
“Chains & Whips,” according to Push, doesn’t actually include any Drake-specific lines from Kendrick. Still, the Powers That Be allegedly went so far as to ask for the song to be removed from the final album.
“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” Push told Frazier, which you can read here. “And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there, was like, ‘We’ll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can’t work because I’m still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go….”
And “let us all go” they did, leading the duo to Roc Nation.
Clipse manager Steven Victor also confirmed the 7 figure amount in an aforementioned interview with Billboard, saying, “They were like, ‘Pay us this money’ — which was an exorbitant amount of money, a s—t ton of money — ‘and we’ll let you out the deal.’ That’s what happened. We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal.”
On the website formerly known as Twitter, Pusha also confirmed the deal with Roc Nation was done in 24 hours.
On Apple Music, the album, out July 11 and available for preorder now via Complex Shop, is listed as being released “under exclusive license to Roc Nation Distribution.” This language has been echoed in recent press notes, with the album billed as “marketed and distributed in partnership with Roc Nation” in the messaging surrounding lead single “Ace Trumpets.”
The last time we were talking about a new Clipse album, the year was 2009 and The Neptunes were still an active producing duo. Like its long-awaited followup, that album, Til the Casket Drops, featured cover art designed by KAWS.
Below, revisit one of the numerous Casket highlights, “Kinda Like a Big Deal” featuring the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
