Re-up still grindin'

It doesn't take long on We Got It For Cheap Volume 3 to figure out what separates Clipse's coke-rap comrades AB Liva and Sandman -- collectively known as the Re-Up Gang -- from its peers. On the foursome's re-work of Jay-Z's celebration track "Roc Boys," it takes about 10 seconds. "First of all, wanna thank my connect," Clipse's Malice raps, mimicking Hova's original lyrics before reminding us who we're dealing with. "Hold up," he interrupts as the horns halt. "I can't do that yet." \nA little more than a year after the critically acclaimed (but commercially disastrous) Hell Hath No Fury, Clipse is anything but ready to kick its feet up, pop the champagne and thank all the people who helped the group along the way. It's not ready to put its drug-peddling past behind it, either. \nMalice continues, returning to the cocaine fixation he and younger brother Pusha T have spit about since Clipse's 2002 debut Lord Willin': "Mount Rushmore with the powder / My face etched in a brick." The themes might be the same on Volume 3. And the beats are about what you'd expect for a mixtape -- a smattering of borrowed tracks, including Kanye's "Good Morning" and some hit-or-miss originals. For a hit, see the airy boom-clapper "Dey Know Yayo." But the rappers' work ethic and tireless attention to detail keep the rhymes as dope as ever. \nTry this one from Mal: "Rotate them chickens like a weather vane / The wind blow, it come and go / It hurricane / Listen again / I hurry 'caine." From Push: "I pull from the ghosts of the dead greats / Ouija board flow, all you niggas is dead weight." AB Liva even summons Melville, claiming he's "like Ishmael with fishscale." \nClipse's latest label move -- a deal with Columbia that means the Neptunes won't be exclusively producing their albums anymore -- raises some unease about the beats backing the duo up on its upcoming full-scale album, due out in October. But lyrically, if Volume 3 is any indication, nothing's changed. "Cum laude with the coke, we're overachievers," Pusha boasts. For the hardest-working rappers in blow business, that sounds about right.