PUSHA-T Respects Drake's Hits But Is Still Trying to Destroy Him

PUSHA-T is back, but he also never left. His latest album Daytona garnered instant acclaim, raising hype for the remaining projects to come this month from his label G.O.O.D. Music. As if having a great album produced by the born-again libertarian Kanye West wasn't enough material for the press mill, Push's longstanding beef with Drake has been reignited, to the delight of social media and Push's brother/ex-Clipse partner No Malice. The renewed energy that comes with conflict is evident in a new interview with Push conducted by Vulture's Craig Jenkins.

On the topic of why he brought up Drake's ghostwriting rumours once again on "Infrared," Push says that it was a simple riposte, given that Drake had deliberately targeted his own realness on "Two Birds, One Stone" in 2016. "If you’re gonna question me," he says, "now I have to question authenticity, and what I feel it is that you claim. You claim a lot of music superiority. You run the charts, for sure. You got it, bro." Push also adds that the information of Quentin Miller's involvement in co-writing with Drake is "public knowledge," and that not only is it fair game to use but that "[He'll] be dealing in truths all summer long."

Naturally, Kanye makes an appearance in the interview, with Push describing the relationship between the two as "a gift and a curse." He doesn't go into too much detail about his disagreements with Kanye's "politics," but explains that his role is to bring a balance to Yeezy's more extreme actions. "Everybody says, 'Ye!' I’m like, 'No, why? Why we doing that? What’s going on? No, man.' Or, like, 'This is how people are gonna look at this.' And, being on a ground level with people, I can articulate that back to Ye and the whole collective that goes into a lot of the decision-making process." Let's see if Ye listens to him at some point this year (he probably won't).

Most of the interview has Jenkins going deep with Push on the process and execution of Daytona, especially in regards to its short length and focused subject matter. Push explains that the seven-song structure was Kanye's idea and that he was initially resistant to the experiment ("I said, 'Oh, I’m the guinea pig?"') but warmed up to it later on. He describes the theme of the album as "the luxury of time," elaborating that "I titled it Daytona because the Rolex Daytona’s my favorite watch. And, I feel like me and Ye are letting the world see that this album is us having the luxury of time to create it. A lot of people don’t have that luxury, a lot of people gotta keep throwing out … [repeatedly slaps one hand into the other] trash, whatever the case may be. We really crafted this."

There's much much more, including Push's bemusement at the current generation of rap ("I’m not knocking any of it. I’m just saying I remember being shot at about [making music about drugs]."), and how he tries to subvert his image as a hip-hop traditionalist by accepting all music under the G.O.O.D. Music label ("Street hip-hop has always had a place and I always had a fanfare with everybody, because hip-hop started as a street thing. I’m just representing that at G.O.O.D. Musicality and all that shit is high level.") Read the entire Vulture interview here.

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