Cats 'round these parts should already know how I feel about Pusha T. And if you don't, simply put...I think money is a beast. I know, I know ALL he talks about is cooking & selling drugs, which is something he's probably never done blah, blah, blah...yeah I get it. But you know what? Who cares? Cause money is EASILY one of the dopest MC walking the planet earth so he gets a pass from me. And trust and believe, I'm not with all of that drug talk hoopla. In fact, I though talking that drug ish would be played out by now but obviously it's not. But my man Mills said it best, just when you think there's not another way for Pusha to make cooking coke sound interesting, I'll be damned if he doesn't find another way to do it. And not just another way to do it but a another DOPE way to do it. So it should come as no surprise that his new album "Darkness Before The Dawn" was one of the most anticipated albums of the year for me. And when I say it doesn't disappoint one bit...I REALLY mean it.
"Darkness Before The Dawn" sets off with the Metro Boomin' produced "Intro" with Pusha talking his ish, "leave your conscience at the door, we done hid the monsters in the floor/I speak to the trap lords and niggaz with their hands in the white like blackboard/I done been black balled and never gave a f-ck cause I'm Jack Frost of sellin that blast off/I'm on a crash course where talent meets timing, Christopher Wallace think Big keep climbing/Reasonable Doubt, drug era keep climbing, I'm my brother's keeper/Lord Willin keep grindin." The Timbo produced "Untouchable" has BIG on the chorus and keeps the party going with Pusha talking his ish, "mu told me to switch styles, he just came home from the Feds like a mistrial/he tells me I miss out on all that club money I don't bounce/Adidas gave me a million that don't bounce/the president of G.O.O.D. Music has been announced, a quarter million a year and that don't bounce/I'm in the score of these movies I'm losing count, Mu you knew me from thirteen hundred an ounce/my breakdown game brought me 8 Mile fame, selling Eminem to him and 'em/white to the blacks I'm a villain in, the Rolls Royce playing peek a boo with the emblem/let's talk about it gentlemen, my barcode is Netflix Narcos, part on the side of my fro like I'm Pablo/no hablo I sell blow, lone wolf no Tonto head honcho" and the Boi1Da produced "M.F.T.R." is straight BONKERS and has Dream freaking the chorus, "creep up on this niggaz, speak up on a nigga/walk up in that b-tch and wave at everything, go and make it bang, getting followed by them hollows go and make it bang/niggaz ain't been to church in a minute but it's funny how that Tec make a nigga get religious."
"Crutches, Crosses, Caskets" has Pusha giving you his take on the rap game while taking some shots at the 6 god, "rappers is victimized at an all time high, but not I, you pop niggaz thought I let it fly/I'm Yasiel Puig I'm in another league, I defected only thing we have in common niggaz bleed/in ya thousand dollar joggers as you rhyme about your dollars, is there shame when a platinum rapper's mother lives in squalor/Mildred's in the Bahamas for the month, she's probably sitting in her pajamas having lunch/swordfish my reality is more fish, banana clips for all you Curious Georges, old niggas slapping young niggas, imagine that, where you from nigga?" The J Cole produced "M.P.A." featuring The Dream, Kanye and ASAP Rocky has Pusha schooling us on the 3 vices that takes cats out the game, "the three leading killer of you niggaz, is the sh-t that's most appealing to you niggaz/even I fell victim to it your pride don't let you do it, the lies will get you through it." The Timbo produced "Got 'em Covered" has the Re-Up Gang linking back up with Philly's Ab-Liva checking in, "Retribution" is ill and the Q Tip produced "F.I.F.A." has Push letting us know that drug money is kicked around like it's FIFA over some hard ass vintage Tribe sounding drums and the album ends with Pusha on his political jawn with some help from Jill Scott on "Sunshine." "I don't got no march in me I can't turn the other cheek, while they testing your patience they just testing my reach/funeral flowers every 28 hours, been laid over ours, sworn to protect and serve but who really got the power/looking over their allowances, building prisons where the mountains is/laptops is for the county kids, mental detectors is where our is/just another nigga dead, just another nigga dead." But my fave banger on "DBTD" is the Nashiem Myrick produced "Keep Dealing" with Philly's own Beanie Sigel. First off, the beat is CRAZY and both Push & Beans kill it. Push sets it off with, "they call him a crack dealer I am like Warhol, a nigga paint a picture of a bullet for all ya'll/now crawl for him, my sophomore jinx is more minks, but only for my mother she'll use em as couch covers/you niggaz cheapening my all star weekends, if ya'll can't swim in the deep end then watch niggaz/80,000 on this watch niggaz and I ain't never had to watch nigga" while Beans comes through with, "I'm Nino Brown in the projects, yes Curtis Jackson in his pyrex, get rich or die trying is my mindset/and spend it all until I'm swallowing dirt, cause I never see a Brinks truck follow a hearse/I ain't never see a dead man taking the stand, I ain't never see a nigga swallow a bullet and live to talk about it/bout that bread I drop a coffin bout it, you watched me go through hell, now watch me walk up out it/nigga sh-t that's how I lost three million, luckily was something in the ceiling keep dealing ya'll."
After living with "DBTD" for a minute, I gotta tell ya'll that I respect the hell outta Pusha's lyrical game now more then ever cause a lot of these beats aren't THAT crazy but that doesn't stop Pusha from making subpar beats sound freaking incredible. Case in point, take Timbo's offering "Untouchable" as much as I love the song it's cause of Pusha, not the beat. Cause I'll bet you a crate of my rarest records that if I played that beat for damn near anybody, they'd say it was "aiight." But if it says produced by Timbaland everybody loses their mind and acts like this was an "Are You That Somebody" type of Timbo beat when it clearly isn't. Or take the Puff produced (like I really believe Puff even knows how to turn on a MPC) "Crutches, Crosses, Caskets" again, the reason that song is SO dope to me isn't the beat...it's all because of Pusha. It like when G Money was telling Nino in New Jack City that they didn't come back for the cocaine, they came back for the bass. And that's REALLY what this album is about. No one's coming back to this album cause of the beats, they're come back cause of Pusha. And the craziest thing is, if THIS is the prelude to his next album "King Push" I'm scared as hell to what that's gonna sound like.
4 outta 5 mics
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