It’s unlikely that Pusha T will ever have another moment as viral as his 2018 Story of Adidon diss. That is very unfortunate, especially when you consider that Pusha has been putting out for over 15 years. He doesn’t seem to be losing steam any time soon, his Kanye-produced DAYTONA showed that.
One of my favorite parts of each year in rap is finding out who had the best year in rap as a feature artist. It may seem like a novel accomplishment, but it’s a great way to stay relevant without releasing a full-length project. As I’ve wrote about repeatedly on this blog, that’s becoming a more and more important factor in how artists release their work.
It’s also a great way for an artist to heat check themselves in public before a big album release. In 2014, right before the release of To Pimp a Butterfly, it was Kendrick Lamar. He left memorable verses YG’s Really Be, SZA’s Babylon, Flying Lotus’ Never Catch Me and Pusha T’s Nosetalgia. I even checked out a Chris Brown song just to hear the latest Kendrick verse (those who know me know that’s a huge feat).
“It’s also a great way for an artist to heat check themselves in public before a big album release.”
Last year, much to my chagrin, this award went to J Cole. The exciting part of this was that people were starting to recognize the importance of this kind of feature run. J Cole featured on JID’s Off Deez, Anderson Paak’s Trippy and 6lack’s Pretty Little Fears. I’m trying to keep my feature naming to three, but that doesn’t give enough credit to the sheer volume of features that we got from 2018 Cole. He also worked with Jay Rock, Rapsody, Cozz, Royce, Bas and Ari Lennox. The track that I will always remember from this run was a lot by 21 Savage, the standout verse on an album that cemented 21 Savage as a legitimately good hip hop artist. It’s runs like these that make me excited for his next project, although he did come out with (the very average) KOD that year.
That does leave an interesting finale to Pusha T’s 2019, as he recently went on Ebro’s Beats 1 radio show to promote an album that seems to be coming by the end of the year. He’s already put out two singles for the project, both are Pusha T standard quality. If he puts out an album to that level, he will complete a very rare combination.
It often seems like rappers who win the best feature award are using all their best verses that year for those features. If there’s no album that year, that’s not a big deal, but with KOD it seemed to impact the quality of his solo project. Before we reach that album discussion though, let’s run through some of the best songs Pusha T has been a part of this year.
Palmolive (feat Pusha T and Killer Mike)
This might have been the most anticipated song on the most anticipated “underground” hip hop album of the year. For real rap heads (those that spend too much time per day refreshing the hiphopheads subreddit), these are some of the biggest rappers in the game. These are artists that have been working at an incredibly consistent clip for years. They’re not focused on anything other than delivering great verse after great verse. This may lead to the sacrifice of hooks, or genre-bending ability, but there’s a Nordstrom-like guarantee whenever you hear a verse from anybody on this song.
“My coke hand is still sketchin’ out my memoirs
What I did to door panels on them Windstars
Gem stars, left cuts in the dinner plates
It’s new stash spots, the AC don’t just ventilate”
It’s these detailed drug dealing bars that never get old. I would be lying to you if I called Pusha T one of the more versatile rappers in the game, but that almost makes him more impressive. He’s been working the same shtick for 15 years, and it’s still as arresting as ever. Descriptions of hiding drugs in minivan door panels and AC units and cutting up cocaine. These are themes that aren’t new to anybody has listened to Pusha before, and he himself didn’t even come up with them.
I will give him credit for his increased maturity in his drug dealing raps. He talks about them in the past, and how he’s grown up from that part of his life, to be the music and media mogul that he is today.
NIGHTMARES ARE REAL — YBN CORDAE
This is the song when I realized that Pusha T had earned the crown of best feature artist. Like J Cole’s verse on a lot, it means quite a bit when you have a standout verse on a breakout album from a young artist. Cordae does a lot on this project, but this song feels uniquely Pusha T. The beat is menacing, from the pitched up vocal sample to the unusually low and quiet 808s that sound like they’re sneaking around the track. He also started doing this thing he’s been doing on a lot of his features, where he incorporates the main artist’s name into the verse. In this case he leads off with “YBN, why be them?”
The album is based around YBN Cordae’s come up to the artist that he is today. This gives Pusha T a great opportunity to talk about his own come up, which I’m sure you already may know about. This verse though, includes his connection to the Neptunes, a big part of his Clipse background.
“Only grew my hair this long because my man died”
While this verse does have classic cocaine bars, it also reflects on high school Push, which is something we haven’t heard much recently. It’s yet another example of Pusha adding a fresh wrinkle into a story we’ve heard many a time before.
Cokewhite — GoldLink
Another one! We just seem to be getting closer and closer to the topic with these songs. It feels like a lot of these could’ve been Pusha songs that he unloaded on someone else when they didn’t pass the stringent editorial board that made DAYTONA.
This song also reflects on the come up, but more on his success now. He appreciates that cocaine got him to where he is today. In fact, he is so committed to the drug, as far as we know, he might have faked his recent marriage to shield a pledge to a cardboard cutout of Whitney Houston for the metaphor.
This verse is a lot more about the luxury that comes with being Pusha T.
“The luggage is the new collab duffle by Rimowa /
The leather shoulder straps makes it easier for chauffeurs /
The PJ’s for six, you better hope one is not your bitch”
Do you have Chauffers? No. And don’t you forget it.
COUNTER POINT: DABABY
In the weeks since I’ve started writing this article, I have found the challenger for 2019’s best feature spot. Many of the challengers for this spot have been in the same vain as this, a young rapper making a name for themselves while their projects continue to gain traction. 21 Savage in 2016 comes to mind. That artist you’ve heard a lot about but haven’t necessarily broken through yet. Until you heard that one verse. For me, it was 21 Savage on YG’s Red Friday cut, I Be On.
This year, it was DaBaby on Dreamville’s Revenge of the Dreamers III track, Under The Sun. DaBaby had already gained success on his breakout hit Suge, and we are currently in wait for his debut album, Kirk. I’ve written about the project already, but this was one of those projects that I waited for Thursday night to turn it on at 9pm. The first song comes on, J Cole spits his verse, there’s some surprise Kendrick vocals, a Lute verse, then the song lays out to spotlight DaBaby.
One thing that stands out on DaBaby’s 2019 run is his ability to save disappointing songs. The first that comes to mind is Chance the Rapper’s Hot Shower. This is another album I’ve already spoken about, so I’ll hold my rant. This song doesn’t exactly fit the album up to that point, and Chance’s verse is often lazy and unimpressive. Madeintyo finds a new low for the song with perhaps the most forgettable verse of the year. Again, DaBaby has the spotlight verse, and does his very best to save the song for anyone who hadn’t already skipped to the next song in the project.
In the second half of the year, Interscope seems to have promoted him as the go-to feature or remix artist for anyone trying to up their streams. Lizzo, Lil Nas X and YG all brought him on to remix some of their biggest singles. Lizzo put him on a Truth Hurts remix, which helped propel the song to becoming Lizzo’s first #1. Lil Nas X put him on the Panini remix, a song that cracked the top 5. YG also threw a Stop Snitchin remix on the end of his 4Real 4Real project with a DaBaby verse.
None of these songs necessarily show DaBaby’s full artistic range. Sometimes they feel like a slapped-on feature for the sake of streams. DaBaby rarely disappoints when included though, with a sticky flow that’s beginning to become a staple in mainstream hip hop. He also just released the intro to his debut album, with a new flow and some of his most mature lyrics.
Even if DaBaby is still a few years away from being the dominant feature king and a top rapper, his rookie year has been going swimmingly. There’s a lot of deserved excitement for Kirk, which will tell how deserving he is of the hype he has built this year.
In the end, the title (at this point) still must go to Pusha T. Not only does he deliver on each of his opportunities, but he’s a name that you tune into an album for. “Oh, so and so has a Pusha T feature on their new project? I gotta hear that.” DaBaby doesn’t quite have that yet, and it doesn’t help that his features often feel tacked on to an already popular song.
What’s interesting (and will be more telling of a successful year) is that both artists full projects dropping this year. If the quality is up to par on those projects, it will show a rapper producing on two fronts in a way that hasn’t been seen in recent years. That could lead to a truly legendary year in rap history.
