Clipse paid homage to their late parents while on The Tonight Show Tuesday night. The brothers ditched their coke bars to perform “Birds Don’t Sing,” with Pusha T opening up about how he’s been dealing with the loss of their mother, Mildred Thornton.
“Lost in emotion, mama’s youngest/ Tryna navigate life without my compass,” he rapped, as photos of Mildred appeared on the screens behind them. “Some experience death and feel numbness/ But not me, I felt it all and couldn’t function.”
Malice‘s verse paid homage to their dad, Gene Elliott Thornton.
“Your car was in the driveway, I knew you were home/ By the third knock, a chill ran through my bones/ The way you missed Mama, I guess I should’ve known,” Malice rapped. Similarly, photos of Gene, who died months after Mildred in 2021, filled the screen.
In place of John Legend was a female vocalist, who sang, “The birds don’t sing, they screech in pain.”
“Birds Don’t Sing” appears on Clipse’s first album in 16 years, Let God Sort Em Out. Speaking to Complex, Malice recalled hearing Push’s verse for the first time.
“He sent it to me. And I wasn’t ready for it. I mean, I literally, I couldn’t take it,” he says.
When it came to recording his verse, he shares, “Y‘all have no idea how many times I had to stop in that studio.”
Malice adds that he thinks “people are gonna be able to relate to it. Life is real. Life is real for everybody. And I think it’s gonna touch a lot of souls.”
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