Pusha T

Anupa Mistry

Welcome to a conversation with Pusha T at Kino International. Our guest today is often referred to as your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper. But as I’m sure we’ll get into, he’s also your favorite producer’s favorite rapper. After honing his sound as one half of the Clipse with his brother, No Malice, he embarked on a radical solo career at the top of the aughts, and in 2015, became the president of the marquee rap label, G.O.O.D. Music. Earlier this year, he released his sleek and precise third album, Daytona, to widespread critical acclaim. Please welcome Pusha T. [applause]

Pusha T

How are you guys doing?

Anupa Mistry

They seem excited.

Pusha T

I’m happy. Let’s do it.

Anupa Mistry

So we are here in Berlin. 4,228 miles from Virginia Beach, according to Google Maps. And that’s where you were raised and where you became Pusha T. What can you tell us about where you grew up and how it might be culturally distinct from other big cities in America that people might feel like they know more about?

Pusha T

Well, I’d have to say that Virginia Beach isn’t really a big city, it’s not. And I think that’s what makes it so special about everything that’s came out of there. It’s a military town, actually. So when it came to musical influences, I always knew about what was going on in southern hip-hop, Bay Area hip-hop. Of course, New York. New York was a heavy influence in Virginia at the time. It was just a small town with a lot of different influences, and I would probably base that on the military first.

Anupa Mistry

You mentioned New York, the New York influence. We know you’re a really avid rap fan. You’ve spoken about channeling Biggie Smalls on Hell Hath No Fury, which is the Clipse’s third record. And you’ve kind of talked about channeling the Purple Tape energy for Daytona, that’s Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linxs....

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

What was it about those iconic records that kind of shaped your world view, or changed your world view as a young listener?

Pusha T

I believe that both of those albums...

Anupa Mistry

Sorry, which Biggie album, to clarify?

Pusha T

Definitely Life After Death. Living in Virginia at that time, you gotta think about it, it’s a military town. It’s also a college town. Norfolk State University, Hampton University, ODU, a little further out, Virginia State. Colleges everywhere. And during this time, the New Yorkers flooded our area, super flooded our area. The drug culture was super heavy. It was really, really a big thing at the time. So just living through that and actually, I actually seen Big in a club. Raekwon was friends with some of my friends. So when these albums hit, it was like chaos through the town.

You had everybody in Virginia at the time talking like they had adopted all of this slang of like Wu-Tang [Clan] and you just saw the Bad Boy influence super heavy. And these guys were great. These guys were great. Living through that time, seeing it, it had a major impact on me.

Anupa Mistry

So you and your brother started rapping together around ’92-ish? Those records had already come out, is what I’m trying to say.

Pusha T

No, no. My brother was always rapping. I wasn’t rapping. My brother is five years older than me. When he was in middle school, junior high school, he was part of a rap group that the principal called a gang. And it was a duo. It was a group of guys who were all duos, and the producer and DJ for everybody was Timbaland.

As far as I can remember... Like I said, he’s five years older than me. So to get his attention as a kid, I would rip up his rap book. I’d kick his rap book. I’d take his rap book, anything to get his attention. He’d fight me, beat me up, I knew it, but I knew that I could get him that way. And this is like... Man, if he’s anywhere between 7th and 9th grade, then what am I, eight? Yeah, like eight. I’m eight, he’s 13.

So I didn’t start rapping until probably ’93, maybe even later than that. I graduated in ’95. I graduated in ’95, maybe ’94 or so. Because it wasn’t even... I just remember it not being cool to say that you were rapping. When I was growing up, I remember watching my brother and them be into it, and then when my generation sort of came it was like, “You rap? Get outta here. You better go get on the block. Go get some money or something like that.” But it definitely wasn’t about rap at the time. I had friends who were in the music industry. And I told you Timbaland was the DJ for my brother and those guys. He lived up the street one way. Pharrell [and] Chad [Hugo] lived up the street a mile away.

I wasn’t rapping when I knew them. It was just something in the water, who knows. It’s like the weirdest story ever to know how close in proximity we all lived. And we all knew each other. It’s crazy.

Anupa Mistry

So then, what changed? When did you start thinking rapping could be cool?

Pusha T

Teddy Riley, producer of New Jack Swing, everything great in R&B during the ’90s. He moved to Virginia Beach. He actually moved next door to Pharrell’s high school. They had a talent show, Pharrell and the Neptunes, N.E.R.D, was discovered. Again, we were all friends at this time. And he was just doing work. Pharrell was writing little parts to “Rump Shaker” and doing SWV things. And I’m like, “This is like a business.” Again, I was like, “Isn’t this for the guys who are on TV? This ain’t for us.” Pharrell really, really drove in the fact of like, “Look man, this thing can happen. It can really happen.”

Just seeing the artists that were coming down at the time was promising enough. Like I said, it’s Teddy Riley, everybody was coming through that studio. Future Records, Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, everybody. I was still in school. I was skipping school, going to Chad’s house. And everybody would be over at Chad’s house and they were like writing records and stuff, and I would just be there listening. And I was like, “Man, I’m going to write me a rap today.”

The bar was pretty much set, though. I was always into the music. I always knew what was cool in regards to what was cool to say. I could tell the difference. My brother was the perfect teacher for me. I was young. I was like a kid and telling my brother, “Hey, MC Hammer is like the best rapper ever, you gotta see this guy.” And he’d be like, “No, man. He’s a great entertainer. Let me show you what a rapper does.” He sort of gave me that type of breakdown. It was pre-school for rap.

Anupa Mistry

Well that actually brings me to this really interesting point, which is I think that you have become known as carrying on a specific rap tradition, and I’m wondering if early Clipse had an aesthetic goal in mind similar to what you might have now?

Pusha T

Making music was just so fun with early Clipse. Just imagine discovering the music business with your friends, care-free, all day. Me and Pharrell talk every morning from nine in the morning already. So it’s nine in the morning, we’re talking, by 12, we’re together on bikes. Bikes turn to cars. Studio. I don’t even know if it was an aesthetic. I don’t know. It was competitive. We would work all day. And this is the reason why I don’t know how to work in studios now. Now, I still don’t know how to pull all-nighters. Guys being there with their Hennessy and stuff and they do like this whole ritual. Weed, Hennessy, three in the morning, five. “Look at me, I’m up. Ah!” [laughter]

OK. I don’t know how to do that. I still don’t know how to do that now. But it’s because of the way we were taught, the way I was taught. We’d work, nine, 12 in the morning to ten at night, go eat, and then we’d go to the club. And we’d go to the club simply to hear and watch people and how they reacted to the music. We’d go there, we’d listen, we’d watch, and the next night or the next morning, Pharrell would be like, “Yo man, I’m going to kill the ‘[It’s All About the] Benjamins,’ I’m going to kill that.” Or whatever record was out. And that was the motivation.

We were students. We were students of people, students of the music, students of just energy and reaction. We were trying to harness all those things. I don’t even know what the aesthetic was. I know one thing. When I got with the Neptunes and we really found our sound when Lord Willin’ hit, I had stopped listening to muddy, hardcore beats. I was like, “Wait a minute, beats can be like bright and hard and angry at the same time.” But they they still had colors to them. One time, hardcore hip-hop was just like muddy, dark. It didn’t have a lot of dimension to it. The Neptunes took me fully out of that.

Anupa Mistry

Do you remember the first time you heard a Clipse song go off in the club?

Pusha T

I really don’t. I can say this though. I do remember watching the maturation of “Grindin’”. “Grindin’” was the Clipse’s first record, and I do remember putting that record out. I felt like every drug dealer in the United States was booking the Clipse for every $2,000 show ever. [laughter]

We were just so excited. We was like, “Oh, wait a minute,” not knowing that our base is really keying in on us right now. We were taking that for granted. And we did these shows. And we did these shows for like nine months. And I remember at the end of that ninth month, it was like “Grindin’” was a phenomenon.

The video had just hit. People were doing the dances that the little girls were doing from around our way. It was definitely the lunch table beat of every cafeteria. The streets had spoken. The streets really had just spoken, and they understood. They understood exactly what we were talking about. It was a hard sell initially, because people were like, “‘Four and a half will get you in the game’? What is all this?” [They were] shooing us off. But then you’d have this guy who’s like in the streets, and he’d be like, “OK. Wait a minute. What’d you just say? They’re saying that? OK. And y’all are from Virginia? Wait a minute, this is different.” And the beat, this chaotic beat with only like seven sounds in it. What is this? It was a lot of different things that just came together and made a great record.

Anupa Mistry

I think one of the things that I find really interesting is that Clipse came out and had this credibility, and then merging my two worlds. I was an early Clipse fan, but I really liked boy bands. And then you put out a track with Justin Timberlake.

Pusha T

Score. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

I loved R&B. You put out a track with Kelis.

Pusha T

Score. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

All of that was my shit. But you know, I think we have to keep in mind that those worlds were really divided at that time.

Pusha T

Shout out to Neptunes. They were the darling producers. They were super producers. They owned, what was it 49 or 51%, Shiv? They owned 51% of the charts at that time. So 51% of the charts, that got to be street records and that got to be pop records.

Anupa Mistry

But did you have any apprehension about doing those records?

Pusha T

No. I mean, we never had apprehension because we were just in love with the process of it and in love with the music we were creating. We saw the vision, but people didn’t see the vision. Just to go back to “Grindin’” for a second, think about all the records that were out at that time. Pharrell singing on the hook, he’s with Nelly, he got the voice down to science at this point. He gives me a record and says, “This is your single,” and he’s not doing that. Do you know what the record labels looked at me like? They were like, “Wait a minute. How dare you? You’re playing with us. You’re toying with us.” And of course we proved them wrong with that one.

It wasn’t scary, we just knew how to stay true to ourselves and people wanted that. Luckily, you were into boy bands. Justin wanted to be a solo artist. He wanted this credibility. It was like, “Oh man, do a record with the Clipse.” That wasn’t supposed to necessarily happen, but people saw it.

Anupa Mistry

I think a different type of artist would maybe get clowned for doing something like that. That didn’t happen with the Clipse.

Pusha T

Yeah, but the records were hot. This wasn’t like a compromise. I didn’t have to rhyme about rainbows or nothing. [laughter]

Everybody wanted a piece of the streets. Everybody wanted the edge. That’s what they wanted at the time.

Anupa Mistry

We can talk a little bit more about the Clipse if you want, but I was...

Pusha T

Let’s do it.

Anupa Mistry

OK. You want to?

Pusha T

Yeah, I love the Clipse. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

So after “Grindin’” hits, after you’re on a Justin Timberlake track, how are you starting to think about what the Clipse project is and the narrative that you want to put out into the world? Did the vision start to be more defined? Earlier you were talking about being competitive and having fun.

Pusha T

Listen, the Clipse were like mixtape artists that could not ever get on a mixtape, because we weren’t from New York. For me, the Clipse, we were always trying to accomplish our street, mixtape rap goals. We just got this guy who goes back and forth with us with hooks and stuff and gives us melody where we need it. And Chad, he likes to play chords, and he meshed all that with these street narratives.

No, the Clipse was always uncompromised. Always. It was never about compromising anything for us. It was like, “If you want to be down with us, you can be down with us.” We only knew street hip-hop. At this time, it was like street hip-hop was what ran everything.

Anupa Mistry

It’s been almost ten years since ’Til the Casket Dropped came out.

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

2009... Looking back, did you have a sense that that was going to be as long of a hiatus as it has turned out to be?

Pusha T

Well, I knew that my brother didn’t want to rap anymore. He told me about it on tour. We were overseas and he was like, “Hey, man, I don’t really want to rap anymore. I sort of want to do the solo thing. And I wrote a book. Here, take it.” He was like, “Read it.”

Anupa Mistry

What were your thoughts?

Pusha T

I was like, “Oh you gonna write a book? I can’t write a book. You just want to be better than me.” [laughter]

I couldn’t believe it, but he gave me a lot of time to think about it. He was like, “Man, you want to do your solo career anyway. You should go ahead. You should go for it because right now, I’m just not on that wave. I’m not on that wave right now.” We’re going through a lot. We’re talking about ’09, April ’09. Everybody who we came into the music industry with, outside of my rap friends, were indicted on a drug conspiracy.

It was a drug conspiracy, and everybody got from ten to 34 years. For me, of course it was a terrible blow. For my brother, I feel like – and I’m not trying to speak for him – but I think he saw things a little differently. His kids would go to bible study with their kids. He saw the effects in a different way than I saw it. If you ask me, through the kids. And he was not with it.

Anupa Mistry

Did you see the shift happening at all?

Pusha T

Yeah. My brother’s a very... We’ve always called him the voice of reason, anyway. He’s very shrewd, very direct, the voice of reason, [a] no nonsense type of person. When things got shaky with the whole prison situation, indictments, so on and so forth, I could just tell. We made it through it, but again, he’s watching the effects daily through children. His kids, friends with my God kids, and so on and so forth. Money can’t patch it up. They can come over and stay the night, but they do go back home and things are different. I feel like he was over it at that point, and that’s really just what it was.

Anupa Mistry

Were you ready to go solo when he broke that news to you?

Pusha T

I don’t know. I just knew it was something that we couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop. I’m like, “Man, I feel I’m nice. I think I’m good.” [laughs] He sprung this on me. There were internet rumblings of, “What if Pusha T was solo?” And you got the Re-Up Gang mixtapes, where it was four of us and everybody gets a verse and people were picking their favorites. I don’t feel like I had a choice. I have management. I got management. I got friends that are relying and living off of what it is that I do. It was just, “That’s the next step, let’s go.”

Ironically, I think I was like in Sweden and [Kanye West] called, he was like, “Hey, man, want to come to Hawaii and work on this album with me?” I was like, “Sure.” And that’s how I got like all my [air miles]. I’m a million miler, right? So I got all of these miles because I kept flying from like Hawaii to Sweden, Hawaii... I was on tour in Europe at the time when my brother told me this. So when [Kanye] asked me to come, I was like, ‘OK. Boom. If I have three days off, I’ll just fly out there.’ And then he’d fly me out there, fly me back, fly me out there, fly me back. This happened like a trillion times.

Anupa Mistry

Do you have a jet lag miracle cure or something?

Pusha T

Listen, what’s that? Jet lag? Who deals with that? That’s nothing.

Anupa Mistry

So you went out to Hawaii, you delivered two really incredible appearances on Kanye’s record.

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

“So Appalled” and “Runaway.” And you’re talking about, maybe not being unsure about going out solo, but you’ve got this thing of probably... Did you feel like you had to prove yourself? Are we hearing some of that tension or struggle on those records?

Pusha T

You’re definitely hearing somebody cracking the whip. Ye was like nuts. I don’t even know him either at this time, I don’t know him well. I know him in passing, met him in the studio a couple times. I believe it was earlier that year or maybe the year before, 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. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

I love that you did birthday parties. [laughter]

Pusha T

Yeah, a couple bar mitzvahs. I do them. [laughter]

So, Ye was a heavy, heavy Clipse fan. Heavy, heavy Hell Hath No Fury fan, heavy. Loved the “Freedom” verse, loved the “Freedom” verse from ’Til the Casket Drops. He was just like, “Hey, come work.” And I came out there. I never worked with him before. Totally different work environment than what I’m used to with Pharrell and Chad.

Anupa Mistry

What was different, specifically?

Pusha T

First of all, you walk in the studio and it’s like a sign that says, “No phones, no cameras, no computers, no laptops. Everything Mobb Deep, everything Wu-tang, everything Jay-Z.” And it was just like closed off and very focused. Working with Pharrell and Chad it’s like, you got the video game on, you got the TV on, we listen to everything. That might spark something, “Hey, Chad, go sample that sound that’s in the video game. Get that.” You’re taking influence from everywhere. And Ye’s just laser focused. It’s musicians around, it’s great people just around. RZA comes through with a sample pack. Hey! You know. I’m like, “That’s RZA. I met Rae before. I ain’t never seen you, guy.”

Anupa Mistry

You’re talking about Kanye being a really big fan of yours, but what drew you to him as a collaborator? Was it just the promise of Hawaii or...?

Pusha T

Well, no. Ye, production-wise, has always been top-notch to me. He heightened, to me, Hov’s [Jay-Z] greatness. Definitely. That marriage was like... Hov was always my favorite rapper, so just as a rapper I’m like, “OK, he’s like the greatest rapper. Cool.”

Lyrically, you just, I’m keyed in, I’m listening to him, and then he gets with Ye and these records and it’s like, “Wait a minute, that’s even intensified.” So, I was always like, “OK. Wait a minute. This guy’s great.” You know, Graduation hit. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” was my every day, every night, every minute song. He was just always innovating. Always innovating. So it was a no brainer. It was like, “I’m going.”

Anupa Mistry

You talked a bit about kind of the work flow, the work environment, differences between Kanye’s production process and Chad and Pharrell’s, but what about musically? You talked about Pharrell and Chad giving you brightness in rap whereas before you were hearing just darkness. What about with Kanye? What was Kanye giving you that you couldn’t maybe get from Pharrell?

Pusha T

Nostalgic soul. Nostalgic soul samples. Or, if it wasn’t a sample, he definitely knew how to recreate that feeling. And when it comes to me, he always tells me, “Your voice is the instrument. I gotta strip down every song for you because you’re more of an instrument than I am this time.”

To me, he’s found my sound. He’s found the new Pusha T sound, musically. If you go to “Numbers on the Board,” if you go to “Nosetalgia,” if you go to “The Games We Play,” today you go to “Come Back Baby,” he’s found that sweet spot that musically he knows. He just knows.

He knows like, “Hey, this is your beat.” We’ll go away to wherever we are recording, and I have faith. I always have faith that he’s going to find that sound. He does. I mean, listen, it can take forever. It can take days, weeks, but he finds it. When we’re doing this whole five album five weeks thing, that all started from just me and him going to work on my album. We didn’t find my album. We found Teyana [Taylor]’s album first, we found a couple joints for himself, then boom! “The Game We Play” comes. He’s like, “Ah! That’s your record. Go write that now!” But this days, maybe a week or so away. It takes time. It’s like an art, man. Was it 6,000? We were like 6,000 records he’s like listening to? Some days it’s just him listening to songs. And he’s like, “Oh! Pull that up!” Start doing whatever he does.

Anupa Mistry

Is there a method to any of that? Is there a spreadsheet, or like what is the playlist?

Pusha T

Yeah, you go to Amoeba Records in LA, you grab a whole bunch of records, you buy a bunch, you load them up, and you listen to them. That’s what he does. That’s his process. That’s what I’ve seen him do for me and for all of those projects. Like I said, he finds a sweet spot and creates the magic from there.

Anupa Mistry

So you’ve detailed a bit of the Daytona process, going away, finding a sound, finding some other records in the process. But you had a record before going into Wyoming.

Pusha T

Yeah because, what we do is... Before going into Wyoming, right, what I do is, I just go around and I sit with producers. All types of producers, new young, whatever. I hear anything that I like, I take it, I rhyme to it, I rap to it, lay it down and just store it.

When I feel like I’ve found my voice on the project, and then found the direction and just the whole theme of the project, I take it to Ye and be like, “Yo, I got my album.”

And you know, nine times out of ten he hasn’t heard the verses. I may have given him the beats, I may have given him the beats, and he’ll be like, “Oh I like that one,” or “I don’t like that one,” or whatever. So between me picking and between him picking through that, I write all of those and then I let him hear it. And I be like, “Yeah, we got the album. What’s up? Let’s round this out real quick.”

This time, a lot was going on at the time, with him. [laughs] He was like, “Hey man, I actually think I can do this better.” And I was like, “Alright.” You know, I’m ready to come out though. I’m like, fuming inside. And he’s like, “I think I can do it better.” And I was like, “Yo. You do know that you picked all of these beats. You did this. You A&Red this project.” He was like, “I know, man. I’m just telling you I can do it better. Why don’t we just go away? I need some therapy, anyway.” [laughs]

So, that’s when Wyoming and Utah and all that started. That comes about from that. When he said that, like I said, a lot was going on with him at the time. There’s always a lot going on with him, but at this particular time a lot was going on and he was like, you know, I felt like he was just asking like just to get his head in a different space. And I was like, “Alright, let’s do it.” Lets just go out there, and I mean, it was quick, I don’t know. A few days? Four days? Week? We were up in Utah in the mountains. House built out, studio built out, getting to it.

Anupa Mistry

The record you kind of had and put away, what was the theme or the story you were trying to tell with that record? And how might it be different from what we hear in Daytona?

Pusha T

The thing about it is, I like to write to beats. I don’t like to like write to a beat and then put those raps on another beat because the marriage is just never the same. Rarely can you make that marriage, you know, can you fit it like a puzzle. It doesn’t usually work like that for me.

I was definitely on my rap super hero shit, like totally. But it wasn’t as cohesive because, like I said, I was getting it from a lot of different places. Ye, when it comes to me, is big on just sound and having a cohesive sound. He hears me. I honestly think he’s like Hell Hath No Fury competing every time he’s making an album for me, personally. It gets a little bothersome, you know. I like a lot of stuff. I like singing. I like things. But he doesn’t really hear that. It’s so funny because like we’ll find something great like that in that vein and I’ll do it and I’ll fall in love with it and then he makes a crazy beat, like “Santeria” or something. And then he’s like, “See! This is what I’m talking about! This is what this needs to be! I ain’t tryin to hear that shit!” It turns into shit, it’s crazy.

[laughter]

It’s like, you know, it’s like he does this great, great convincing job of you know, like, “Listen, man. This is your sound, bro. You can’t abandon your sound.” I’ll be like, “Yo, man, it’s one song.” He’s like, “No. We don’t want one song. We don’t. We just want it all like this.” Everybody comes into the room. They’re like, “I think he’s right.” [laughter] I have no backing, no nothing.

Anupa Mistry

Does anyone say, “No”?

Pusha T

I mean, I do. I say no a lot. I mean some people do. But I don’t know. It’s just how it goes.

Anupa Mistry

One of the things that that I really like, that you said about Daytona, is that you’re trying to channel first album energy.

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

So how do you channel first album energy pretty much two decades into your career?

Pusha T

I just have a chip on my shoulder, honestly. I really do when it comes to rap. Um, cause I don’t think lyric driven hip-hop goes out of style. I don’t believe that. Even with rap changing and the different subgenres of rap and the different sounds, the chip on my shoulder is competing with those sounds.

It’s like... I want to be the disruption to all of this. And I don’t want you to think that you can do what I do. I don’t want you to feel like you can do that. I’m not into that. I feel like if you feel like you can do what I do, then I’ve lost. So looking for first album energy, I just try to tap into like the brash, you know, young Pusha T who just doesn’t give a damn. Like, he’s a rebel. That guy? That guy’s loony.

Anupa Mistry

How do you find that in Utah? [laughter]

Pusha T

You know what it is? Utah is honestly just getting away from everything else. That’s what Utah is. That’s what Wyoming is. Actually, you find it really good in those places because you have no other distractions in the world and you can hone in on whatever that emotion is in your log cabin mansion room. [laughter]

Your log mansion. [laughs] it’s actually really good to do it out there in those places like that.

Anupa Mistry

We haven’t touched on it too much, but I think...

Pusha T

You touched on about everything.

Anupa Mistry

Well, most of us here know that Daytona was whittled down to seven tracks.

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

Gonna be eight, but then it became seven.

Pusha T

It was gonna be ten, yeah.

Anupa Mistry

I imagine that was a challenge.

Pusha T

Sure was. [laughs]

Anupa Mistry

We could talk about that but we could...

Pusha T

Of course!

Anupa Mistry

...also talk about some of the other ways that you were challenged on this record, musically, not just in terms of Kanye’s kind of work flow, or that kind of thing. One thing...

Pusha T

I’m used to the work flow now. That’s whatever. But the seven song thing was a challenge because we had more. We had more. We had more that I had fallen in love with, and he hadn’t fallen in love with them.

By this time I mean... You guys really gotta understand, I came in with the full, G.O.O.D., Kanye West A&Red album that “Hey, you know, he’s probably gonna put some drums, whatever. Boom.”

By the time he heard it, and he had made the decision like, “No, nobody else is touching this,” number one, he gets very selfish. Extremely. And then he got hype and was like, “Oh no! I’m making an album. Teyana’s making an album. Like everybody gets an album! Nas is getting an album!”

Anupa Mistry

Its like Oprah. “You get an album! You get an album!” [laughter]

Pusha T

Yes! It wasn’t that, but he found his bounce. He found his bounce, and I really think he was inspired. I feel like he fell in love with the keyboards and the drum machines, and he fell in love with all that stuff all over again right in front of my eyes.

I was saying that to say – we were talking about the seven songs. You know, as much as I wanted to have ten, I had to think about it and I was like, “Yo, This man is really doing 35 beats, which is a lot. Like 35 beats is like you’re dealing with me. You’re dealing with [Kid] Cudi, like Cudi’s a whole other monster. Like, you know, like, you’re dealing with Teyana. You’re dealing with Nas, you’re dealing with Ye times two, just cause Ye’s two or four. It was a lot, and then it came to the him, like I said, loving seven.

He found seven and he was like, “No I love this. Matter of fact, everybody getting seven. We gonna give every... I’m doing seven for everybody. I like the number. [applause]

I was like, “You gonna give me you like the number reason? You like bullying me at this point.” He’s like, “No. I actually do like the number.”

Anupa Mistry

There’s probably some numerology reason for seven.

Pusha T

Listen, I’m sure. He could make it up right now if you asked him. What really sold me, because he really knows I’m so, so anti... The idea of everybody putting 25 tracks on an album to get their streams up and all of that is such a poverty way of cheating to me. I’m not into it. So I was like, “You know what? You’re right. We need to be totally against everything and we need have a whole other mantra in regard to what we are doing in this wave.” And he sold me on it.

Anupa Mistry

How did he sell you on the album art?

Pusha T

Um, you know, let me tell you. I don’t know if you guys follow my tweets or whatever. Maybe some of you do. But that whole process was really happening in real time. And I was doing radio promo with no album artwork. Album’s coming out the next day. I tweeted. I said, “Ay, listen guys. This album is coming out. I don’t got the artwork yet, but when I get it, you’re gonna have it.” I’m tweeting that. I send that tweet out. I got an photographer who’s done the photos for My Name is My Name, Darkest Before Dawn. He’s done all... He’s done so much for G.O.O.D. Music.

We got him in to do a photo shoot. I found a great photo, it’s a photo of myself. I’m happy with it. I like pictures of myself on my album. I like myself. I want to be seen. Yes. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask. [laughter]

So I’m like, “Yo! OK, cool.” I found it, I mocked it up. I was like “Hey, this is what I like.” ’Cause it was winding down. He’s doing all these projects. He’s doing mine. I’m like, “You don’t need to worry about this type of stuff, man. Just let me just do this.” At 12, one o’clock in the morning I get a call. It’s him and he’s like, “Hey, man. You know I just don’t feet like this art is capturing the greatness of what’s on this album.” And I’m like, “First of all, it’s a picture of me. I better be capturing the greatness of what’s on this album. What do you mean?” [laughter]

“No, I’m telling you that I got an idea. I got this idea. I got an idea. I’ll get back to you. We not putting that out quite yet, OK?” “OK.” That was it. I wake up in the morning... Um, oh no. That’s one thing. You know he told me the price of the art and I was like, “Hey! We don’t have to spend that on my art.”

Anupa Mistry

$85,000

Pusha T

Yeah! I was like, “Hey! I was like, I don’t want to do that! I don’t want you to do that!” He was like, “No, I want to do it.” And I was like, “Alright.” I still didn’t know what it was gonna end up being until the next day, and I had to do like radio... By the time it came out – No! I’m sorry. When the album came out, I was doing radio phoners and I was getting these wild, wild, interviewers who were like, “Listen. I feel a way.” And I was just like, “Oh, OK. You feel a way. What’s wrong?” They were like, “This art is so disrespectful,” so on and so forth. It was like, “Whoa, wait a minute.” I was trying to explain to everybody like, “Listen, this art was done, honestly, just trying to capture... It was drugs, luxury, everything that picture said. Granted, it was from Whitney [Houston]’s bathroom, right? The home bathroom, I believe, not the hotel. I think it was the home bathroom.

Anupa Mistry

I think it might have been...

Pusha T

But nobody was trying to play Whitney out or nothing. The picture was just like it was perfect. It was the perfect description. Organized chaos, drugs, luxury, ups, downs, everything I was describing on this album. And that’s what it was. And I’m sticking by it. I love it, and it was paid for. [laughter]

And where’d the money go? To the person who sold it. So, with that being said, you know, it was for sale. You buy things you want. You sell things you wanna sell. That’s how it goes. Retail 101.

Anupa Mistry

When My Name is My Name came out, which was actually five years ago this week, basically, you told Miss Info that you weren’t rich enough to take weak shots. So five years on after your successes, and the “surgical summer,” does that statement still resonate?

Pusha T

Say that one more time? I told her I wasn’t what?

Anupa Mistry

You weren’t rich enough to take weak shots.

Pusha T

To take weak shots. What are weak shots? [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

That’s what you said.

Pusha T

Wow. Yeah, but I’m very well off these days. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

That’s not what I was asking. Well is it even about the money?

Pusha T

Its totally not about the money.

Anupa Mistry

Yeah.

Pusha T

Totally not about the money for me. This is like art to me, man. It’s art, it’s my passion, I love it. If it was about money to me, I probably would make different records.

I mean, if you want to talk about it, I really made variations of the same album for the past 20 years. I mean, close. But I just know who I’m talking to, man. I know exactly who I’m talking to. I know exactly who my core is. I cater to that person. I don’t cater to anyone else. If you want to be down, fine. Come join us. If you don’t, it’s okay. It’s just a little different for me, man, because I feel like there is nobody else out there who does what I do.

I feel there are a lot of people who, you know, talk a street narrative. I don’t know... It’s a lot of them. I just don’t think they do it the way I do it. I think it hits some people because there’s some actual gems in what I say. There are actual like... I follow the rules of hip-hop and people who love hip-hop, their metaphors, their similes, their parallels drawn. I talk about current things. I talk about things that hurt you here [points to heart].

This rap thing is like a language to people. It’s a real language that resonates with a whole lot of people, and what it is that I do and the way that I do it – from vocabulary to just being articulate in doing it – that’s what broadens my base a little bit. There than that, it is what it is. You know what you’re getting from Pusha T. Every time.

Anupa Mistry

Language changes over time.

Pusha T

Language does change over time, and I think I change.

Anupa Mistry

Like most of the industry, I think rap has shifted to emphasize business over certain traditions. Why does competition matter now that the parameters have changed?

Pusha T

I think for me, competition has always mattered. When I tell you about my early days and I tell you about how we even competed with other records, that’s why I don’t know how to work in studios. ’Cause we were busy trying to just hear what was next and be like like, “How do you outdo that?”

Competition matters. I feel like the artform was based on that. It was. Hip-hop culture is based on competition. Not just rap, just the whole culture of hip-hop. You know, walking outside, walking outside, having on fresh shoes and saying, “You ain’t got these.” Like its always competitive in every aspect of hip-hop. Fashion, rap, just knowing about you know what hot, what’s next. There’s a competitive spirit in all of that. That’s the hip-hop I was raised off of. So I don’t know it any other way.

Anupa Mistry

There’s a Daytona track called “Hard Piano” and...

Pusha T

Yeah. One of my favorites.

Anupa Mistry

On it you rap, “I won’t let you ruin my dreams or Harvey Weinstein the kid, good morning Matt Lauer, can I live?”

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

This record came out when both of those men were facing and admitting the serious allegations of sexual assault.

Pusha T

Yes.

Anupa Mistry

When you are writing a punchline, how do you think through the word play versus the way those references might play out in the public consciousness?

Pusha T

I rap for an intelligent individual, man. I really do. I rap for people who know what’s going on in society, know what’s going on in current events. We call it sacrificing for the greater good, actually. That’s when we just know what we’re talking about and we know that there’s a certain individual who’s going to know what we are talking about, but maybe the other person might not. It ain’t for them. It’s really not.

You know, when I’m talking about Matt Lauer, and I’m talking about Harvey Weinstein, it’s like man. It’s “I won’t let you ruin my dreams. Or Harvey Weinstein the kid. Good morning Matt Lauer. Look at my new digs. The rooftop can host a paint and sip for like 40.” I’m talking about just not falling into any of those wild, weird, sexual-deviant behaviors. And I’m also talking about just my growth. I got different things to brag about. I’m not into this whole... I just got married. Not into the whole chasing 90,000 women and so on and so forth. That’s not it anymore. Times are changing. That’s not the thing.

I’m just thinking of the verse. “Look at my new digs, the rooftop can host a paint and sip for like 40. The Warhols on my wall paint a war story. Had to find other ways to invest. ‘Cause you rappers found every way to ruin Pateks.” It’s just setting myself apart from what other rappers are doing, what they talking about. I’m into different things. I’m talking about my rooftop. I could sound washed. Easily. It’s just owning where you are as a person, knowing your space, and being able to say that I’m growing. I’m getting older, and I got other interests.

Anupa Mistry

Do you feel like... I’ll say rap, only because that’s what you do.

Pusha T

Yes. I do not sing.

Anupa Mistry

I would extend this to people making all genres of music in general, but do you feel like rap has a responsibility to be more socially responsible in the language that artists use?

Pusha T

Yeah. I would say yes. But, I’m saying yes because I’m from the era of “The Message.” That was one of the first rap songs. Rap to me is you talk about what’s going on outside right now. You tell me the story of what’s happening. What do you see? What’s going on? You address the issue. You attack the issue. Whatever it is. I don’t know rap that doesn’t do that. I don’t necessarily listen to rap that doesn’t do that. I may have fun to it, I may bounce to it. Whatever.

I’m not necessarily ... I can enjoy it. I’m not trying to solve that puzzle, though. Let me say that. I’m definitely not trying to solve that puzzle. When you hear my records, I want you to try to solve the puzzle. I want you to discover things and say, “Oh my God! That’s what he was talking about!” But I want you to do that four weeks later. I want that to happen. That’s the goal. Man, I may have just now deciphered Reasonable Doubt. That was ‘96. And I needed the book to code it.

That’s the beauty of hip-hop to me. That’s the beauty of rap. That’s the art in it. That’s the greatness in it. I don’t know... Everything else is good. Like I said, the other sub-genres and what they do, and the fun you can have with them, so on and so forth... It’s cool, but this right here, this is something different to me.

Anupa Mistry

So, when you talk about having a message, addressing an issue, attacking an issue, what is the issue at heart when you’re putting out a record addressing a rapper like Drake?

Pusha T

What is the issue?

Anupa Mistry

Yeah, what is the issue?

Pusha T

Oh, it’s the competitive spirit. It’s the competitive spirit. He puts out records and he says what he says, and it’s just about combating that. And coming back at it, lyrically. That’s what it is that I do. I feel like that’s another aspect of what that competitive spirit is, and just standing your ground and showing what you believe in.

Anupa Mistry

After all of the discussions that your record has brought up – and there’s Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly kind of back and forth this year – what is your sense of how people understand this competitiveness, or this tradition of beef and diss records in rap that you’re talking about? Do people get it?

Pusha T

I don’t know if people get it. I don’t know. I don’t really know. I don’t know how they look at it. You can look at social media, and you can read comments that say, “Hey, Pusha T went crazy! But he sold less records.” You know? Or you can look at comments like, “Man, that wasn’t that good.” You know? Whatever. “A billion streams.” I don’t really know. I don’t know how people take it. I feel like I know how my people take it. Now, I know what they think. They’re me. So they look at it how I look at it. We chop heads off, that’s it. And that’s really it for me.

But that’s the battle wave. And you feel like... It’s funny because people will play with the whole battle notion in their raps. They’ll say slick things, they’ll do this, they’ll say this, they’ll say that. Right? But then when it comes it’s, “Oh, it’s too far! Oh, you can’t do this! I’ma write a whole dissertation about why this wasn’t supposed to be.” Bruh. It’s not even fun at this point.

I think you have to be really careful in toying with it. Because it’s like ... I feel like once you play in it, now you have to really play. You have to really play. ‘Cause to me I don’t like, all of the... Even with that whole situation, you gotta really think about it. I really didn’t do... It happened during my album roll-out. So I did interviews during my album roll-out, and of course that was happening. So it’s like, “OK,” and I have to talk about that. But since that I haven’t really talked about it. Because to me it ain’t nothing to talk about. It’s just action. When it’s time for action, we go for action. And that’s it. It’s like war games. Why we gotta talk about it? If we gonna get busy, we gonna get busy. You don’t walk to the bus stop to fight, to talk. You don’t do that, right?

And that makes sense. And I’m not... Content is king. So you gotta keep your content to yourself until it’s time to engage. So I don’t really know how people think anymore. I don’t.

I’ma tell you what I do notice, though. And I’ve seen this a few times. There’s not a lot of emphasis put on the battle wave and things like that anymore. Before, you could almost be taken out of this game by losing a battle. Actually, people have been. It’s not like that anymore. People be over it. It’s cool. You take the L and go on. People forget about it. “Oh yeah, that happened, but whatever. Dope song.” [laughter] That’s how it goes. And it’s cool, it’s whatever.

Anupa Mistry

We’re also coming up on three years since you became the president of G.O.O.D. Music.

Pusha T

Yeah.

Anupa Mistry

Why was that something you wanted to do?

Pusha T

‘Cause I feel like that’s my calling in music. I feel like this is how you mature in music. You have to share the codes with other artists, new artists coming up. I feel like you have to share your experiences, you have to find other artists. Groom them. Show them everything. Show them things musically and just life-wise. A lot of these artists are from different places and different backgrounds. They’re running into tons of money. You give them those words and you help them see their way through it all. I feel like that’s my calling in music for now. I’m working on an album now, but I still gotta bring artists through and be like, “Yo, this is hot. This is not hot. This is what’s coming next. What’s up? We need to go grab him.”

And that’s part of like just what we do anyway. My studio sessions over at G.O.O.D. with everybody usually just starts with conversation and a talk about who’s hot, what’s hot, what’s new. Let’s hear it. What does it do? Who likes this? Once you discover all those things, you see if they’re available. You see if they’ll fit in the fold, if they wanna even be down with the fold. People are so self-sufficient. Artists are so self-sufficient these days. Not everybody always wanna be down. Sometimes you find a diamond. You’ll find a record bubbling on SoundCloud, like Desiigner. And you say, “Hey, what’s up?” 16 million singles later...

Anupa Mistry

Do you think it’s a good or bad thing that artists are more self-sufficient now than before?

Pusha T

No, I think it’s good. Yeah I think it’s good. It’s good to me, ‘cause it’s something I look at and admire. Having lived through all of these eras... I’ve been in this 20 years now, right? So living through and being the kid who was driving from Virginia to New York, and thinking I’m gonna be the label head, and really meeting the mail boy who is trying to get out the mail room himself... And actually taking it to the A&R when he told me he was the SVP. I went through that. So to watch somebody produce, make their songs, shoot their own videos, have a following, cultivate a following before anything. Pop up with 750 kids at his show, and I don’t know you. It says a lot. And I like to see it.

Anupa Mistry

What would be the advantage of a kid who is self-sufficient finding a label home then, in this era?

Pusha T

You can look at it two ways. You can be independent, and you can work very hard, extremely hard, and get everything that’s due to you. Or you can set that foundation, get with the label, and let them sort of blow it up for you. Hopefully, they don’t mess up, and hopefully you don’t mess up in trying to be self-sufficient. If you got the patience, do your thing. If you need the help, and you know you need the help, you probably should go to a label.

But you gotta know that. Not everybody is built for the indie grind. I feel like if you know that you’re built for it, then go for it. If you don’t know, then go ahead, go to a label. There’s nothing wrong with either, man. You can get money either way.

Anupa Mistry

You said that G.O.O.D. Music has become sonically competitive under your presidency. Can you talk a bit more about what that means?

Pusha T

I feel like under my presidency the albums that have come out, the records that have come out, the sound of G.O.O.D. Music is now competing at a frequency. And it’s not all the way there yet. It’s not all the way where we’re putting out albums back to back to back to back to back, you’re hearing the music constantly. I feel like people know the difference, and people look at us and say, “This is a G.O.O.D. project, hold on. We can wait on this and... When this drops it’s gonna be chaos.”

I honestly don’t feel like there was anything more impactful than the five weeks from May 25th to whatever the last release was, which was Teyana’s. I don’t know if there was anything that was more impactful all this summer, between that and the drama. [laughs] I don’t know, musically. I don’t know what was crazy. Great music... A lot of great music has come out, but I think it’s fair to say the noise was definitely surrounding G.O.O.D.

Anupa Mistry

What have you learned from that roll-out, the way of doing things that you guys did this year? Is there something that you’re like, “No, that actually didn’t work.” Maybe won’t do it again?

Pusha T

I can’t say I won’t do it again. But what I will say is that I feel like we accomplished something. We’ve done something that we were trying to do, and we didn’t know how to do, since G.O.O.D. Fridays. The whole G.O.O.D. Fridays thing, I don’t think there was a time, a weekly time in music... Everybody was tuned in for G.O.O.D. Fridays. The world was tuned in for G.O.O.D. Fridays. “What’s gonna drop? Who’s gonna be on it?” So on and so forth. And we were trying to figure out, “Yo, how do we out do that?” I think we came close. We came close with grabbing the attention of everybody and making people anticipate what was next with these five G.O.O.D. offerings, for sure.

Anupa Mistry

There’s nothing about this whole experience that didn’t work?

Pusha T

Of course. You heard Teyana. She cursed me out a couple times. I feel like in doing things like that, you’re working with... It’s not just the good, you have to make sure that these albums get ingested into the Apples, Spotifys, all of that type of stuff. If you don’t, then it’ll be a little late. You had those type of issues, for sure. You had... I think Ye took his artwork picture in the car on the way to the listening party. I’m sure that’s not really...

Anupa Mistry

Spent all his money on yours. [laughter]

Pusha T

Maybe. Probably. It’s things that – looking for the consumer, just giving them the ultimate awareness, and making sure that they’re excited about art in a timely fashion – sort of messed up. Again, putting the albums out, not having them ingested in those particular platforms on time, which caused them to be late, and so on and so forth. That was a bit of a issue.

But it was fun, man. Like this was fun. It was a lot of fun, actually. Even the hiccups and hang-ups were like... We’re not perfect. And we like for you guys to go through... I think y’all been seeing since Pablo. He like redid that album with y’all. Really. I literally flew to New York, we did the whole order of what it was, I think we narrowed it down to like 12 songs. Like, “Oh, this is perfect.” We left, we jammed. I woke up next morning, it was 19 songs on it. Mixes still being done. And I just left a perfect album.

It’s like, man, you guys are really... I just want you to know, you’re really seeing the inside of something. [laughs] You’re seeing the madness happen as it’s really happening in a lot of these different situations. And it is what it is. I’ve learned to work like this with G.O.O.D. It’s normal to me now. The Addams Family. [laughter]

Anupa Mistry

So, how come Kanye gets to make the decisions, then, if you’re the president?

Pusha T

As far as what?

Anupa Mistry

Well, like... “No, this should be the album art. No, it should be seven tracks. No, I could do it better.”

Pusha T

I feel like there’s certain things that I personally don’t put as much emphasis on. I’m gonna say, “Listen. These verses are crack. Take this. This song is crack. I love it.” He’s definitely gonna be like, “OK, listen. I produced this, I want it to look a certain way. Why wouldn’t you let the DONDA staff do this? Why would you not want... “ And then he gets into that. By the time I have him fully engaged creatively, you want his genius. You definitely want his genius involved in your project. He’s really passionate about it.

I’m not passionate about art. Art like that. Like I said, it could’ve been a picture of my face, “Hey. It’s Daytona.” Bro, it’s like fire. I can’t wait it to get out. The picture? Leave me alone.

Anupa Mistry

We’re talking about Kanye’s vision. G.O.O.D. Music was, slash is, Kanye’s vision.

Pusha T

For sure.

Anupa Mistry

Why should people who are disappointed or angry at Kanye’s current vision of the world buy into G.O.O.D. Music’s vision right now?

Pusha T

I don’t know that. [laughter] We disagree. I don’t know. I feel like Kanye... He’s been a person who definitely tries to get his point across, right? At all costs. He’s willing to go through all types of hell and damnation to get his point across, and piss people off, and everything, if he believes that it’s gonna pay off in the end. I truly believe that everything that he thinks, and all of his views ... He feels like, “Hey, it’s gonna pay off in the end.”

Even though we don’t agree, I personally know that... I know him. I know him, I know his heart. And I know that he’s... More so than anything, he’s all about making things better. Just for the world, for people, he’s about peace, he’s about giving people a shot. I’m not like that. But he is. When it comes to us and dealing in that, and the working dynamic of that, we just agree to disagree. And it’s not like I’m... It’s not an excuse to be made. He doesn’t want no excuses made for him either. He doesn’t. Like I wouldn’t. But I can just say that I know him personally, and I know that he is, and his mind is telling him, “Man, I need to go through these channels to sort of make these others things happen. And I’m willing to exercise that, and y’all can stone me.” But he’ll go for it like that.

Anupa Mistry

What are you most proud of?

Pusha T

Right now? What am I most proud of? I had an awesome wedding the other day. So great. [applause] Listen, that even happened during the firestorm of everything. I’m just happy how everything has turned out this year: personally, musically, business-wise, for everybody at G.O.O.D. You guys get to watch the reality show. This is what it is, it’s real. Every aspect of it over here is real with us. We argue, we fight, we disagree. We make great music. We love it. I don’t know if everybody loves it. We do, though.

Anupa Mistry

I think that’s our time.

Pusha T

Really? No! We have more time. No way.

Anupa Mistry

Do we have more time?

Pusha T

Of course! We’re here. [applause]

Anupa Mistry

I don’t know. I’m like, looking at it. Unfortunately, we don’t have more time.

Pusha T

Aw, man.

Anupa Mistry

But please everyone, give our thanks to Pusha T for being here.

Pusha T

Hey, thank you guys for coming out. [applause]