After signing a new joint venture with Columbia Records late last year, The Re-Up Gang (or The Clipse plus Ab-Liva and Sandman) finally released their long awaited mixtape, We Got It For Cheap Vol. 3: The Spirit Of Competition, over Super Bowl weekend. With the third installment in the series the crew decided to cater to downloaders by making the mixtape available for free download on their new blog (reupgang.blogspot.com). The mixtape was also made available in two different versions: one with DJ Drama and one without.

But regardless of how the mixtape was released, The Re-Up Gang still managed to deliver to their fans another quality underground release. It’s apparent after a first listen that Ab-Liva and Sandman are more prominently featured on Vol. 3 than on the first two installments of WGIFC, probably to give them a bigger push before their solo albums are released. Surprisingly, the two artists seem much more comfortable on this release and their rhymes are better.

After listening to Ab-Liva and Sandman on WGIFC Vol. 3, one actually gets a sense of how big their influence on The Clipse might be. Sandman offers some of the most vivid coke-rap lyrics and excels in the art of storytelling on “Rainy Dayz.” The detailed scenario on this track immediately reminded me of Pusha T’s verse on “Nightmares.” Ab-Liva brings to the table some very slick metaphors and intricate wordplay.

Throughout the mixtape it’s interesting to see how much Pusha T and Malice stepped up their rhymes. The mixtape heats up on the “Re-Up Intro” with a freestyle over B.G.’s “Hustle,” where Pusha T goes hard at Lil Wayne on the second verse with “Sorry but I don’t respect who you applauding / Little nigga flow, but his metaphors boring / Don’t make me turn daddy’s little girl into orphan / That would mean I would have to kill baby like abortion.” Again, Pusha T comes out swinging on “Show You How To Hustle,” with a not so subliminal diss to Lil Wayne (“Rotate them chickens like a weathervane / The wind blow. It come and go. I’m hurricane / Listen again. I hurry cane / Don’t make me come to Miami and bury Wayne”).

And while Pusha T takes the cake for dopest verse on the first couple tracks, Malice obviously has his fair share of quotables on the mixtape as well. His verse on “Roc Boys,” for example, is full of them, especially towards the end where he says “I can’t touch that. It’s kinda delicate / My lawyer is on the House of Delegates / I put em on with my derelicts / Name your price. You can buy tampered evidence.” The last part of his verse (“More powder than Maybelline / Push pounds like the Medellin”) is classic coke-rap that would probably take someone like Young Jeezy an entire day to come up with.

On “Emotionless,” both Malice and Pusha finally begin to shed some light on their relationship with their former label, Jive. Pusha opens up the song talking about how their last album, Hell Hath No Fury, was a commercial failure and places the blame on Jive (“I guess I caught a brick according to Soundscan / The critical acclaim is that of a proud man / Prepare for the worst. That blood’s on Jive’s hands / Cause when the Fury dropped, so did 80,000 grams / Add that to my 80,000 fans”).

Malice really surprised me though on “Emotionless,” when he started talking about his relationship with Pharrell (“As for P, he has yet to wish me well. / So there it is. I picked my bone / Toast to CEO Mal, I sip alone.”). He also comments on Pharrell’s neglect of The Clipse over the years on “Rainy Dayz ("I can't wait for Skateboard to save me / My house in default, his house paisley / He's not at fault, no, not vaguely / He's on a yacht somewhere with Jay-Z”). With Pharrell not showing up for a guest appearance like he did on the previous installments of WGIFC and not so subliminal disses like this floating around, one wonders just how rocky the relationship is between the superproducer and the VA duo.

However, the standout track on WGIFC3 is “Good Morning” which sees amazing verses from every member of the crew. Pusha’s verse is particularly memorable though. You almost get the impression he stayed up all night perfecting this one: “Do your history if you reminisce with me / You connect the parallels and recognize what gifted be. / It’s not a mystery. No more second guessing him. / At this point, you don’t have to question who I’m better than.”

Overall, the third installment of the We Got It For Cheap is just as good as the first two and in some areas, probably better. All of the beats that the crew picked to rap over are great for their deep, rewind worthy verses, but aren’t so great that they overshadow any of the rhymes on the mixtape. The hooks are a little weak on tracks like “Dey Know,” “Scenario 2008,” and “Emotionless,” but then again catchy hooks aren’t typically what people are looking for on a Clipse mixtape. After the commercial failure of their last album, The Clipse return strong on this mixtape and manage to breathe new life in to an incredibly boring first quarter for hip-hop.