Happy Daytona Day, everybody! Last night, Pusha-T finally dropped his long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s King Push — Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude after a number of false starts and scrapped sessions, and it’s already garnering a substantial deal of notice and acclaim. Among other things, not only is Daytona a concise and hard-hitting seven-track burst of power from Push, it also marks the beginning of Kanye West’s grand return to the studio, as the album’s executive producer.
It’s also been kicking up no shortage of controversy, from West’s expenditure of $85,000 for a picture of Whitney Houston’s disheveled bathroom to a number of lines Pusha-T drops throughout the album. Among other things, Pusha reignites his on-again, off-again feud with Drake.
Drake most recently took shots at Pusha-T on the More Life track “Two Birds, One Stone”, rapping:
“But really it’s you with all the drug dealer stories
That’s gotta stop though
You made a couple chops and now you think you Chapo
If you ask me though you ain’t lining the trunk with kilos
You bagging weed watching Pacino with all your niggas
Like “this what we need to be on, ” but you never went live
You middle man in this shit, boy you was never them guys
I can tell ’cause I look most of you dead in your eyes
And you’ll be trying to sell that story for the rest of your lives”
In response, Pusha-T returns with some Drake heat of his own. On the Daytona track “Infrared”, he specifically makes reference to Drake’s alleged ghost writer, Quentin Miller:
“Ya hooks did it
The lyrics pennin’ equal to Trump’s winnin’
The bigger question is how the Russians did it
It was written like Nas
But it came from Quentin”
Among a whole host of other topics, Pusha-T went on The Breakfast Club to discuss the collaborative process with Kanye, his plans for the coming year, and the aforementioned bars. His acknowledgement is enjoyably half-hearted; when asked if the “Infrared” lines are a response to Drake, he states, “Yeah. I feel like it was to be responded to. At the same time, it’s music.” He goes on to add, “There are real writers out here, who really do this, who really enjoy the craft of this. Then there’s other artists who make great music. And they put it together how they put it together.”
The album is full of name-checks, with respect shown to J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar, but there’s another bit that will probably garner some divided attention in the coming weeks. From “Hard Piano,” which features a Rick Ross cameo:
“Never trust a bitch who finds love in a camera
She will fuck you, then turn around and fuck a janitor
Set the parameters
You either with the pro ballers or the amateurs
I won’t let you ruin my dreams or Harvey Weinstein the kid
Good morning, Matt Lauer, can I live?”
Well, there’s that. In any case, between this and Kanye’s upcoming album, GOOD Music is about to be the talk of the music world in summer 2018. Just the way that Ye likes it.
