Not to sound too sentimental, but I’ve always been one of those saps that looks to music as among the most viable of creative outlets — something that author Aldous Huxley most succinctly labeled “after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible” (thanks, Google). As humans, with emotions and feelings, we celebrate it, we need it, for many of us it’s the air we breathe. And while Virginia-based hip-hop group Clipse might scoff at such sappy cliches, the importance of imgaes and words is just as important. So be prepared: when Malice (one half of the Elektra Records duo, along with his brother Pusha T) cries out how “music is a self-made prison,” this is only the beginning of a torrent of  lyrics that is somewhere between self-loathing and self-congratulatory. Lyrics that denote frustration, anger, and more frustration. Words that come from having lived in an environment where there’s little to do and less to think about. Clipse is from Virginia Beach. I grew up in plain old rural Virginia, but I’ve been to the beach there, and I can tell you that the only real difference between the two is in the ground you’re walking on and a really cold ocean with small waves. Surely, they’re not the only music group to sing about death and despair, but when you name your album The Funeral, and you live on a beach, maybe there’s something to be said for it. Just to hammer my point home: my English professor at college once said “if you’ve never been to Virginia, it doesn’t matter. Where I grew up, you could see nothing had really changed since the 1800s.” That said, Clipse hits home for me. Their lyrics aren’t even about Virginia, but their brutal honesty in rhyming, their talent for mixing and beat matching, are suddenly that much more poignant to me now. And anyways, in a world of P2P thievery and illegal downloading, when was the last time you heard about a hip-hop duo being signed to Elektra Records? They’re on Red Bull Music Academy Radio now.