The label loved what they heard—except for Kendrick Lamar’s guest verse on the thunderous “Chains & Whips,” the final version of the song that Pharrell teased at his first LV runway show, and the song Pusha says was the first to come out of their sessions. Don’t be fooled by Pusha’s interviews appealing for one last guest verse and the Twitter jokes that he went to a GNX Tour date to physically walk Kendrick into the nearest studio; K. Dot’s verse homework has been turned in for a while now.
But after a summer of beef between their two biggest artists that resulted in a still ongoing lawsuit from Drake, Def Jam’s parent company UMG blanched at the antagonistic opp-optics of two of Drake’s biggest enemies linking on wax. Pusha calls their apprehension “stupid”—primarily because none of the bars in Kendrick’s otherwise excellent verse could really be perceived as a shot or even subliminal. (It does, however, contain the stellar line: “Therapy taught me how to open up/it also showed me I don’t give a f***.”)
Pusha can barely contain his disgust recounting how the stalemate with Def Jam played out. “They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” he explains. “And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there was like, ‘We'll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can't work because I'm still there solo. But if you let us all go… ”
Labels tried to get the Kendrick verse taken off
Smaller artist would’ve taken it off immediately and nobody would’ve believed them
Yep I am thinking the same. They most likely don’t have the luxury of shopping around.
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article has a lot on drake, kendrick and kanye
but lets not lose in the shuffle, that the mike tyson blow to her face snippet is confirmed on the album
That is until 2019—the turn of another decade, and another change of heart. During sessions at his Wyoming ranch for what would become his Jesus Is King album, Kanye asked Pusha for Malice’s number; Pusha was in the early throes of a disillusionment with what it meant to be in Kanye’s orbit—“living through the foolishness,” as he describes it—even though their union would sustain for another two or three years (more on that later).
“I don't want to bring him into the foolishness,” Pusha recalls thinking. Malice affirms: “He was like, ‘You don't want to do this.’” Still, Malice gave his blessing and ended up coming out to Wyoming with his brother. “I don't deal with foolishness at all,” Malice says with a smirk. “But I saw what he was talking about.”
As frustrating as the experience ultimately was, it served as a crucial spark for the reunion. It yielded the first official new Clipse track in “Use This Gospel,” but the sessions were even more fruitful than fans realized. The brothers have revealed they wrote to the “Follow God” beat before Kanye snatched it back for Jesus is King; ironically, being so productive made Pusha more frustrated, since the stuff they were creating together was still stuck under Kanye’s umbrella. “I feel like we were suddenly convinced that it could happen,” Push says of their first reunion thoughts. “But there was so much going on within the whole Ye circle…. If we decided we were going to jump into it, then we should be jumping into it. It wasn't progressing like that. So, I think, if anything, that was a stumble on just trying to make it happen and everybody not just being on the same time schedule. That was bothersome to me.”
Respect to Pusha for being honest about his feelings on Ye. Seems like most rappers aren’t calling bruh out on his bullshit, so it’s nice to see he isn’t sugar coating his feelings about Ye
Respect to Pusha for being honest about his feelings on Ye. Seems like most rappers aren’t calling bruh out on his bullshit, so it’s nice to see he isn’t sugar coating his feelings about Ye
Push was one of the most loyal people in Ye's circle for a looong time. The fact Ye even bad mouthed him is insane
Theres a leaked screenshot of a Pusha and Ye text thread where he straight up tells him nobody respects him