“It is because of my faith that I’m sitting here with you right now,” Malice tells Apple Music’s Ebro Darden about reforming Clipse with Pusha T. “That is the only reason that I get to sit here with my brother.” Brethren both in blood and in song, the Thorntons made up one of the most vital rap duos of the 2000s. Signed back in the day to The Neptunes’ Star Trak imprint, the Virginia Beach pair spat intricate yet gratifying narco bars over cutting-edge production. Yet despite dropping three essential, consequential albums over the course of that decade, an apparent crisis of Christian values appeared to prompt a creative split. Not long after the late-2009 release of Til the Casket Drops, a hiatus commenced as both members explored solo careers with distinct differences. Pusha T continued his coke-rap ascent within the GOOD Music roster, while Malice purposefully rebranded himself a Christian artist under the subtly adjusted moniker No Malice. Thankfully, their bond could never be broken. A momentous 2019 appearance by both brothers on Kanye West’s Jesus Is King suggested a greater musical reconciliation. Yet it took the return of long-time collaborator Pharrell Williams, a core architect of the classic Clipse sound, to produce Let God Sort Em Out, their first new album in some 15 years. “It just felt like a real good family setting,” Malice says of the studio sessions in Paris that yielded these tracks. “The creative aspect, the same as it’s always been from yay high.” “