Oh man, that Kanye West guy is at it again, good thing we're not here to talk about him entirely. We're here to talk about Pusha T's third solo album Daytona which was highly anticipated to just be seven tracks and a little over twenty minutes. You know we're here for the grimy drug raps, and that's all Push is gonna give us.
Now, I make it no secret I prefer No Malice over Pusha T. Two sides of the same coin, coke raps no less, just the highs and lows of the game. I can't say Pusha T disappointed me lyrically at any point on this album. I never expect him to have multiple flows because he's just so good at the one he's been using his entire career and nobody can duplicate it. He's still good for 1.3 quotables per song so there aren't any lyrical surprises.
I'm gonna be honest with you, the production on the album wouldn't be bad, no annoying, if it was a Vince Staples album. See Kanye walked in the studio determined to produce the entire album and he gave Pusha T a Vince Staples album. It's full of the electronic instrumentation that Vince Staples music is filled with. Pusha's style doesn't exactly fit with everything on the track.
Because of that, Hard Piano is my favorite track without question. The beat is super simple, just a piano loop with a few drums. It's track like this where I feel Pusha T shines. He spits:
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 a nightmare, yeah, I'm too rare amongst all of this pink hair, oohHow is that not great? Pusha T is rare these days. Even the rappers who claim to be drug dealers and killers are out here looking like Rainbow Bright. I'm not going to say this is alarming because there was a point in hip hop when rappers were performing in cod pieces and leather chaps. It's not new for rappers to have strange appearances but Pusha T is rare now. He just looks like a normal person. He doesn't have an image or gimmick or any of that nonsense that would make him look weird. He's just Pusha T, same guy we've known since 2002. Sidenote, I heard someone say Pusha T was a nobody and his career would be over after Drake was done with him like Pusha T hasn't been a successful rapper for damn near twenty years at this point. I just thought that was funny. Pusha T has survived the test of time by never being anything but Pusha T.
My least Favorite track is "What Would Meek Do" because while I do believe Meek was screwed over my an unfair justice system like many in America, I don't care what Meek would do. But I'll tell you what really pissed me off. Kanye said:
Poop, scoop! Whoop! Whoopty-whoop!I can't believe that Pusha T didn't tell Kanye to take that crap off his album right away. I dare you come on my album talking about poop scoop, when you already forced me to make a seven song album. If it was up to me that verse would have been left on the cutting room floor.
"Infrared," has the standard diss bars to Drake, Birdman and of course Wayne. But, I think the most telling part of this was as follows:
At the mercy of a game where the codes is missing, when the CEO's blinded by the glow it's different, believe in myself and the Coles and Kendricks, let the sock puppets play in their roles and gimmicks. Shit, remember Will Smith won the first Grammy, and they ain't even recognize Hov until "Annie," so I don't tap dance for the crackers and sing Mammy, cause I'm posed to juggle these flows and nose candy (yugh)It's nice that he shouted out Cole and Kendrick, I just think it's the other parts we need to look at. See, I think these are shots at Mr. West believe it or not. CEO of Good Music might just be blinded by the glow. There's also the the tap dancing for crackers and singing mammy. That's nobody but Kanye right now. He's been doing that shit for a long time and he told us back on Watch The Throne when he said:
I’ll never let my son have an ego, he’ll be nice to everyone, wherever we go, I mean I might even make him be Republican, so everybody know he love white peopleIs that not what the fuck Kanye is doing? Trying to do this love everyone thing while wearing a Trump hat and trying to prove he loves white people, while hanging up the phone on J. Cole and putting John Legend's texts on the time line? I could be making a mountain out of a mole hill but I think it's about Kanye. Everyone has been talking about how they tried to reach out to Kanye in his latest melt down and he just blew them off, so maybe that was his way of trying to reach out. I don't know.
Seven track albums are stupid. Since when is an album a 20 minute experience. That's not even my full commute to work. Now I'm sitting at a red light trying to find something else to play. Push you're your own man, tell Kanye no more BS and give us the full 10-12 tracks. I don't think it's a bad album, I just don't think it's great. It's way too experimental to be a Pusha T album and that's not a knock at Pusha T. You just don't have time to be experimental when your album is only twenty minutes. I wish I could be out in the middle of nowhere and see what was going on when all these albums were being created, but I wasn't there. I don't know the process but I guess if you know you know.
You should buy Darrell's Book, watch him on the Blerds Online YouTube Channel or The CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts.
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Album Review
