Photos and Text: Mehan Jayasuriya
A good half hour before Clipse hit the stage at the Mowhawk to close out the Rhapsody party, the air in the outside venue filled with the scent of a certain recreational herb. “It smellin’ good out here!” Sandman would later declare upon hitting the stage. The fact of the matter is that anticipation was high for the Virginia Beach duo and they certainly didn’t disappoint, delivering both Clipse and Re-Up Gang tracks with the ferocity and focus that their fans have come to expect. Sure, they might have just been yelling over backing vocal tracks most of the time but you wouldn’t know it from the way the kids were dancing in the front row. About a third of the way through the set, Pusha-T and Malice were joined on stage by Sandman and Ab-Liva — thereby forming the Re-Up Gang — and proceeded to play tracks from the band’s much-loved We Got It For Cheap mixtape series. At the end of the set, Pusha-T and Malice jumped off the stage with nary a word to the crowd — it was quite clear that there was nothing more to be said.