Some artists reinvent themselves. Many artists remain true to form. There’s a gilded echelon in the pantheon, however, for those artists who double down on one granular specialism, finding endless ways to make it new; next level.
Hip-hop legend Pusha T is one of those. As his name makes amply clear, the Virginia Beach artist raps – mostly – about drugs. A former dealer in his youth, whose erstwhile manager Anthony “Geezy” Gonzalez was sentenced to 32 years (he was released after serving eight and half) for running a $20m drug ring, Pusha T knows of what he speaks. Within a few lines of the first track of his electrifying set, the 46-year-old is staking his claim: “I’m cocaine’s Dr Seuss!” he seethes, slyly.
What Pusha T means, of course, is that he is the poet laureate of crack cooking and dope slinging, with 30 years of clever and rich wordplay to back it up, not to mention Grammy nominations. He has come dressed in white. On the screens are old-school instructional black-and-white videos demonstrating how to cook crack. You stir it counterclockwise, apparently.
More metaphors follow. On the banging Neck & Wrist: “We fishscale n****s like we all Pisces,” he smiles – fishscale being a metaphor for high-grade, flaky cocaine. “The purest snow, we sellin’ white privilege,” he notes on Just So You Remember. “The book of blow, just know I’m the Genesis.”
“This ain’t that, that ain’t this,” he offers on Rock N Roll, off his latest album, 2022’s It’s Almost Dry (itself a reference to cooking drugs and, simultaneously, the paint on a masterpiece). Pusha T is fearsome, but also often very sharp, and may well be reading zany picture books to his young son, named Nigel Brixx; he has long since left the street life for the music business, family and finer things. In among the coke raps are other themes of note: references to rap history and Architectural Digest, as well as fallen friends and the death of the rapper’s parents.
It’s Almost Dry is that rare thing: a critically and commercially lauded record. It went to No 1 in the US on release, reanointing a veteran artist who has entered his second prime: statistically unlikely for a rapper, despite a handful of lifers such as Jay-Z or Nas.
Pusha T doesn’t feel like a typical veteran, though, trading on past glories. Stalking the stage, crouching and gesticulating, he runs through his last two fiery albums, plus a selection of guest verses, with fierce glee. “Pusha!” chant the fans, repeatedly opening up moshpits in the centre of the crowd. Another chant goes up: “Fuck Drake!”, nodding to the well-known differences between the two rappers. (As recently as last week, Drake took aim at Pusha T and his creative ally Pharrell Williams on a guest verse on a Travis Scott tune.)
This second act in Terrence “Pusha T” Thornton’s life was not assured. He first hit as half of Clipse, the duo he formed in the early 1990s with his brother, then known as Malice. On Lord Willin’ (2002) and Hell Hath No Fury (2006), Clipse combined ice-cold drug menace with masterful flows, the whole package wrapped in a bow by fellow Virginia Beach creatives the Neptunes, AKA producers Williams and Chad Hugo, just entering their own hot streak. In the 90s, Virginia Beach was a crucible of talent, also spawning Missy “Misdemeanour” Elliott and Timbaland – a kinship that still merits a shout out to this day. “Missy was my only misdemeanour,” raps Pusha T on Diet Coke, one of It’s Almost Dry’s biggest tracks. There’s room in Pusha T’s set tonight for one throwback to that era: Grindin’, dedicated to those “with me since day one”.
Clipse fell apart when Malice found religion, regretting his life choices and changing his name to No Malice; Pusha went solo. In 2016, it emerged that, contrary to his street-adjacent image, he was part of the Pharrell team that created the I’m Lovin’ It jingle for McDonald’s. (Thornton feels he was under-rewarded for his contribution and recently wrote a track for a McDonald’s competitor, Arby’s, called Spicy Fish Diss Track.)
Pusha T also fell in with Kanye West. The latter, now known as Ye, recruited him for guest features, produced his records and made him president of his record label, GOOD Music (a post Pusha T has since left). Ye was at the helm of Daytona, the 2018 album that put a late-life rocket up Pusha T’s solo career. Thornton has made clear his disagreement with Ye’s political views, but remains in the fold. Much of It’s Almost Dry was produced by Ye, supplying vintage soul samples; Williams did the other half of the album, a rematch that has proved golden. Another significant encounter happens on It’s Almost Dry: Pusha’s brother guests on the album track I Pray for You, igniting rumours that the two may be entertaining the notion of a Clipse reunion.
Tonight, Pusha T apologises for keeping his London fans waiting for this rescheduled date. “I was working on new music and I couldn’t stop,” he offers to whoops. Throughout the gig, between songs, the rapper keeps repeating: “We’re not done yet!” But he could well be describing his own artistic output: high grade and not, it seems, in short supply.
• This article was amended on 8 August 2023 to remove an incorrect reference to lyrics on the Daytona LP.
