Pusha T sat down with Red Bull Music Academy in Berlin to talk about his relationship with Kanye West, Drake, making Daytona, heading up G.O.O.D. Music and the early days of the Clipse in Virginia Beach.
Highlight moments from the interview :
On New York rap influences:
“I actually seen B.I.G. in a club. I actually… Raekwon was friends with some of my friends. So when these albums hit, it was like chaos. It was like chaos through the town. They had adopted all the slang, you just saw the bad-boy influence super heavy. It had a major impact on me.”
On that time he played Kanye’s birthday party:
“I didn’t even know him at the time, well. I knew him in passing, met him in the studio a couple times. Don C’s birthday gift to Ye was the Clipse coming to perform Hell Hath No Fury in its entirety at the Louis Vuitton store in New York. It was like an opening or something. Ye was heavy, heavy Clipse fan. Heavy, heavy Hell Hath No Fury fan, heavy.”
On working with Kanye for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy:
“You’re definitely hearing somebody cracking the whip. I mean, Ye was nuts. I came out there, I’d never worked with him before. Totally different work environment than what I’m used to… it was just closed off and very focused. Ye is laser-focused.”
On writing:
“I like to write to beats. I don’t like to write to a beat, and then put those raps on another beat, because the marriage is just never the same. Rarely can you fit it like a puzzle, it doesn’t usually work like that.”
On channeling “first album energy” for DAYTONA:
“Man, I just have a chip on my shoulder. I really do when it comes to rap. ‘Cause I don’t think lyric-driven hip-hop ever goes out of style, I don’t believe that. And even with rap changing in the different subgenres and the different sounds, the chip on my shoulder is competing with those sounds. I want to be the disruption to all of this, and I don’t what you to think you can do what I do. I’m not into that. Looking for “first album energy” is trying to tap into the brash, young, Pusha-T who just doesn’t give a damn. He’s a rebel.”
