Pusha T Is Here, Leave Your Conscience At The Door
Remember this is just a prelude. Pusha T’s sophomore solo album arrived today together with the 22 minute film by Kid Art financed by Jay-Z and now running on YouTube after it’s exclusive week run on Tidal.
‘King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude’ comes ahead of the slated 2016 release of the ‘King Push’ album and runs at just 10 tracks, but goes in as hard as nails with a dark tale of drugs, dealing and death, digging deeper into illusions of power and evils of money.
From the Metro Boomin’ produced intro, demanding you leave you conscience at the door, Pusha vividly cuts through a story with nothing but bars on bars – vices spread like a disease, till you’re hustling so hard you’re crippled on crutches, dying on a cross, and finally buried in the dirt, only to rise up through the pits of darkness, to take a look into the mirror of America. Pusha may compare call himself to Warhol but he’s not painting pop art, this is the dark art of painting pictures of bullets.
King Push deliberates through a carefully curated short epic, tearing open the fabric of street life and revealing an underlying conscience that doesn’t want to become another victim of this thing called ‘street life’. Preaching isn’t Pusha’s style but reaching a pinnacle as president of G.O.O.D music entrenches a confidence in his calling as he pulls in features that range from the Timbaland produced cut ‘Retribution’ featuring Kehlani to a haunting echo with Jill Scott on a bluesy low. Each contribution adds a shade of grey, from Kayne West, J Cole, Timbaland, Q Tip, Diddy to Mike Dean – as they all add lead weight to the depth of darkness. We end this epic with one question – is Pusha finally ready to leave behind the street life and will a new ‘King’ resurrect?
Ending with a spiritual in the standout ‘Sunshine’ that turns to grey – tackling the death of Freddie Grey, Pusha looks at America’s entrenched racism – ‘these ain’t new problems, they just old ways‘. Expect the unexpected when the ‘King Push’ album comes.
Tickets for the Pusha T’s London show in April 2016 at Electric Brixton are now on sale.
