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Pusha T

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Pusha T (Music)
Pusha T (real name Terrence LeVarr Thornton, born May 13, 1977) is an American rapper from New York.

He started his career in 1993 as part of a duo called Clipse with his older brother No Malice, but didn't release his solo debut album until 2013.


Discography:

With Clipse:

  • Exclusive Audio Footage (1999)note 
  • Lord Willin' (2002)
  • We Got It 4 Cheap, Volume 1 (Mixtape, 2004)
  • We Got It 4 Cheap, Volume 2 (Mixtape, 2005)
  • Hell Hath No Fury (2006)
  • We Got It 4 Cheap, Volume 3 (Mixtape, 2008)
  • Road to Til the Casket Drops (Mixtape, 2008)
  • Til the Casket Drops (2009)
  • Let God Sort Em Out (2025)

Solo Career:

  • Fear of God (Mixtape, 2011)
  • Fear of God II: Let Us Pray (EP, 2011)
  • Wrath of Caine (Mixtape, 2013)
  • My Name Is My Name (2013)
  • King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude (2015)
  • Daytona (2018)
  • It's Almost Dry (2022)

Tropa T:

  • Battle Rapping: Drake and Pusha T had been beefing on and off since 2012, stemming from the latter's feud with his mentors Birdman and Lil Wayne, but 2018 was when things truly kicked into high gear, and got Kanye West involved. Things started with Pusha T reigniting the ghostwriting accusations towards Drake on the track "Infrared" from his album Daytona. Drake quickly responded with the well-received "Duppy Freestyle", wherein he denied the ghostwriting accusations while questioning Pusha's past as a drug dealer, and insinuated he ghostwrote for Kanye while he visited him in Wyoming. Drake even went as far as to send G.O.O.D. Music a $100,000 invoice for "promotional assistance and career reviving". Unfortunately, Drake's fortunes would immediately turn sour with Pusha releasing "The Story of Adidon" a few days later. On "Adidon", Pusha revealed to the world that Drake had a secret child with a pornstar, accused him of being a deadbeat father, and mocked Drake's longtime producer Noah "40" Shebib for having multiple sclerosis. However, the most damning blow to Drizzy was the song's cover art, showing a photo of him in blackface with a goofy smile which prompted mockery and condemnation from all sides. Drake later explained that the photo was part of a project he did with a photographer about racism in the entertainment industry. He also accused Kanye of telling Pusha about his son, but Pusha claimed he got the info from a woman Shebib slept with. Ultimately, Drake never responded to "Adidon" on record, and it caused his reputation among the hip-hop community to nosedive tremendously, though it ultimately didn't hurt his overall sales or pop chart success. The feud would also lead to a beef between Kanye and Drake (mainly instigated by Ye) that lasted into 2021 (and was later revived in 2024), with the two of them regularly throwing barbs at each other on various songs.
  • Blackface: "The Story of Adidon", a diss track against Drake, uses a 2007 photo of the latter in blackface as its cover art. The photo was initially mistaken for a Photoshop at first before both performers confirmed it was real, with Drake explaining on Instagram that the photoshoot it was from was intended as a commentary on the prevalence of Modern Minstrelsy in how black actors are typecast. Unfortunately for Drake, one of the bigger digs Pusha made in the diss was Drake's long-term insecurity about his biracial identity — accusing him of being ashamed of being the light skin of his mother and thus coasting off of his Black heritage of his absent father when it was convenient for him, co-opting hip-hop culture in order to feel "Black enough" — and the image did not help in a rap battle decided by public opinion.
  • Creator Thumbprint: Selling cocaine is a common topic in his songs.
  • Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: His brand of "luxury street rap" tends to fall into this category.
  • The Diss Track: "The Story of Adidon", which is against Drake. Notably, he reveals that Drake had a son that he was hiding from public.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: "Trouble on My Mind" is about wanting to cause trouble yet has lyrics such as "Let's hit a couple bars and give some bitches wet willies." The music video features the two throwing eggs at random passerby, doing wheelies in a Rascal and trashing a hotel room.
  • Glam Rap: A darker variant of this trope in his solo work, which he calls "luxury street rap".
  • Longest Song Goes Last: "I Pray For You" ends It's Almost Dry and is the longest at 4:21.
  • Lyrical Tic: "YUUGH!"
  • Minimalistic Cover Art: My Name Is My Name is just a white cover with a barcode on it.
  • Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He targeted Drake's insecurity over his race during their respective beef in 2018, with "The Story of Adidon" laying out Drake's perceived loyalty to his Disappeared Dad in order to reap the benefits of feeling "Black enough" despite it clearly not being his element of comfort. Making the point of how poorly Drake chose his role model is the bombshell that Pusha reveals that Drake had a son that he was willfully hiding from the world out of shame and neglect (framing Drake of trying to be like his dad for all the wrong reasons), and to really drive it home, the artwork used for the diss is a real photo of Drake from 2007 in blackface and cartoony, Jim Crow-themed clothes.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "The Story of Adidon", he eschews rehashing his accusations of Drake using ghostwriters and goes far more personal. He accuses him of being a deadbeat dad (like his own father) to a secret illegitimate child with porn actress Sophie Brussaux and hiding him from the world. He also takes potshots at Noah "40" Shebib, Drake's closest associate, and his multiple sclerosis..
    Drug dealin' aside, ghostwritin' aside
    Let's have a heart-to-heart about your pride
    Even though you're multi, I see that your soul don't look alive
    The M's count different when Baby divides the pie, wait, let's examine why
    Your music for the past few years been angry and full of lies
    I'll start it at the home front—"I'm on One"
    Dennis Graham stay off the 'Gram, bitch, I'm on one
    You mention wedding ring like it's a bad thing
    Your father walked away at five—hell of a dad thing
    Marriage is somethin' that Sandi never had, Drake
    How you a winner but she keep comin' in last place?
    Monkey-suit Dennis, you parade him
    A Steve Harvey-suit nigga made him
    Confused, always felt you weren't Black enough
    Afraid to grow it 'cause your 'fro wouldn't nap enough
    Since you name-dropped my fiancée
    Let 'em know who you chose as your Beyoncé
    Sophie knows better as your baby mother
    Cleaned her up for IG, but the stench is on her
    A baby's involved, it's deeper than rap
    We talkin' character, let me keep with the facts
    You are hiding a child, let that boy come home
    Deadbeat motherfucker playin' border patrol, ooh
    Adonis is your son, and he deserves more than an Adidas press run; that's real
    Love that baby, respect that girl
    Forget she's a pornstar, let her be your world, YEUGH!
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Malice's Blue in Clipse.
  • The Rival: Pusha T has had longstanding feuds with Drake and Lil Wayne. While the latter two are far more popular, Push is generally considered to be the winner in both. In Drake's case "The Story of Adidon" was the knockout punch after a competitive battle. As for Lil Wayne, his only diss track toward Push, "Ghoulish," was very poorly received.
    • After their falling out in 2022, Pusha has begun feuding with former close collaborator Ye. Travis Scott also got caught in the line of fire after his album Utopia contained a diss toward Pharrell in a guest verse from Drake, which Travis did not include when playing the album for Clipse.
  • Wham Line: His infamous Drake diss track, "The Story of Adidon," has a line which reveals something unknown to the general public at the time:
    You are hiding a child, let that boy come home
    Deadbeat mothafucka playin' border patrol, ooh
    Adonis is your son
    And he deserves more than an Adidas press run; that's real

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