Let’s be real…we all have that artist who gets a pass for the nonsense they do. For some women, it’s Beyonce. I’ll hear chicks complain ALL day about these female singers who dress half naked in their videos and dance around the stage like strippers but then these are the same chicks who are shelling out $200+ to go see Beyonce whenever she comes to town. I know dudes who are black militants like Professor Griff from PE but throw on Mobb Deep’s “The Infamous” and all of that pro blackness goes out the window for the next hour in return for some good ole fashion Queensbridge sex, drugs and violence. So for cats who know me, know I don’t really rock with rappers who spew a whole bunch of senseless violence and drug hoopla in their rhymes, that is unless you're The Clipse. Now, I think one of the reasons that certain artists get this pass from their fans is because they’re so damn good at what they do. Beyonce is EASILY the best at what she does and back in the day nobody could paint an iller picture of Queensbridge and the 41st side then Mobb and when it comes to that drug game rap, there’s not another dude walking the earth that can talk that ish, like Pusha T does. In fact, when it comes to coming up with new ways to talk about the drug game, Pusha T is like Pizza Hut to me. Cause I swear to you EVERY TIME I think Pizza Hut has come up with the last thing you can do with a pizza…they ALWAYS come out with something iller! Whether it's the stuffed crust pizza or the cheesey bites crusts they always somehow someway like Organized find a new way to make something as old as pizza more and more exciting. And it’s the same with Pusha, cause you would think a dude who’s catalog is 94.3% talking about drugs (the other 5.7% is money and women) for the past 13 years would have HAD to run out of ways to talk about selling drugs, right? Welp, not Pusha. And if you think that after two incredibly dope mixtapes that Pusha was gonna run outta ways now that his solo album “My Name Is My Name” is on tap, then you must be smoking that same crack that Push rhymes about.
The Kanye West and Sebastian Sartor produced “King Push” sets everything off and has Push telling you that “I rap nigga about trap nigga, I don’t sing hooks” and all I gotta say about that tracks is the drums…those damn drums. “Numbers On the Boards” is just flat out bananas and gives you that braggadocios Pusha T that we’ve all come to love, “every car driven was decided by the horse/keep the sticker in the window in case you’re wondering the cost.” The Swizz Beatz produced “Sweet Serenade” featuring Chris Brown probably gets the most spins out of any song that’s dropped this year in my whip, “supreme ballers, all my niggaz got ESPY’s/triple doubles, both wrist and necks freeze/triple doubles, two bricks and tech squeeze/triple doubles, two hoes and check please/they love me on my Ric flair sh-t/in that phantom like I’m Blair Witch.” “Hold On” featuring Rick Ross is dope with Pusha spittin’, “I sold more dope then I sold records/you niggaz sold records, never sold dope/so I ain’t hearing none of that street sh-t/cause in my mind you motherf-ckas sold soap” but the only down side is you gotta deal with Kanye’s chanting in the background of the whole song and has me wondering if listening to this song on repeat will have me under some ole illumanti spell and trying to kill Obama on my lunch break or sumthin. And as soon as I’m about to say to myself, “I could go for some Pusha over some Pharrel right about now” the Pharrell banger “Suicide” featuring the nicest nigga outta Philly my dude Ab Liva pops up it’s ugly head, “I’m still a snow mover, blow harder than tuba/designated shooters, turn weed to woolers/condo in Atlanta, money counters like the NASDAQ, in that glass back, the motor is the ass crack.”
“40 Acres” featuring Dream has Pusha getting personal with his lyrics, “the dream ain’t die only some real niggaz/we were born to mothers who couldn’t deal with us/left by fathers who wouldn’t build with us/I had both mine home, let’s keep it real niggaz/my better half choose the better path applaud him/younger brother, me a spoiled child I fought him/I heard that the devil’s new playground is boredom/the California top just falls back like autumn/and they say I’m on the verge of winning/I claim victory with Malice on the verge of sinning” while “No Regrets” featuring Jeezy gives us that 5.7% braggadocios Pusha I was talking about earlier spitting “nowadays I sell hope/what you rather I sell dope/what I sell is a lifestyle, naked bi-ches on sailboats/foreign cars on a freight train, for every niggaz they railroad/rent a cars we road run, money longer then train smoke/I done been in that same boat/I ain’t letting this chain go/representing my niggaz down til they free them like Django.” The No ID produced “Pain” featuring Future is just disgusting, “18 wheeler gorillas, black with gold chains pitch birds like steelers/Hines Ward of the crime lords/running through this money screaming encore/spending nights with the prime whore/but that’s the b-tch that you’re blind for/celebrating on a whim nigga/pain is Pac above the rim nigga/my b-tch rock a bigger gem nigga/cause she was there when it was dim nigga/she wasn’t f-cking none of them niggaz/so now we’re even like a hem nigga/put your freedom over failure/trying to find my Griselda/might as well they gonna nail ya/momma screaming like Mahalia/pain is love and it’s war/pain is running outta raw/pain is finding out your poor/as the feds knock on your door” and anybody who knows anything knows you can’t end a Pusha album without a Pharrell banger and that’s where “S.N.I.T.C.H.” comes in, with Pusha speaking on some betreyal ish, “now when the phone starts to click in, your words start to echo/say you gotta hang up but the man won’t let go/oh, my nigga say it ain’t so/now we speaking on some niggas that he says he ain’t know/we used to steal dirt bikes, dodge raindrops/so close niggaz though we had the same pops/graduated, getting money on the same blocks/but things changed and we ain’t end up in the same box.”
And as much as I’ve run this album in the ground, my fave track on “MNIMN” has gotta be the Nottz produced “Nosetalgia” featuring Kendrick Lamar where they both share their stories about growing up around cocaine, “20 plus years of selling Johnson & Johnson/I started out as a baby face monster/no wonder there’s diaper rash on my conscience/my teething ring was numbed by the nonsense/gem startz razor and a dinner plate/arm and hammer and a mason jar that’s my dinner date/then crack the window in the kitchen let it ventilate/cause I let it sizzle on the stove like a minute steak/nigga I was crack in the school zone/two beepers on me, starter jacket that was two toned, four lockers, for different b-tches on their mule on/couldn’t go wrong with a chest full of chains and an arm full of watches/what I sell for pain in the hood, I’m a doctor/Zhivago tried to fight the urge like Ivan Drago/if he dies, he dies/like Doughboy to Tre, if he rides he rides/throwing punches in his room, if he cries he cries.” When I tell ya’ll that money is a walking hip hop quotable, I ain’t just talking to hear myself talk. The only two head scratchers on “MNIMN” is “Who I Am” featuring 2 Chainz & Big Sean because of the two rappers I just named and The Dream produced “Let Me Love You” basically because it’s Pusha doing his best Rev. Mase impersonation and since I’ve never been a Mase fan this jawn just don’t sit well me. But at the end of the day, Pusha is just one of those dudes that you either rock with or you don’t. And I know more then enough cats who think Pusha ain’t nice at all which I just don’t get. I understand that you might not like all of the drug talk and since that’s basically all he raps about you might not wanna check for this album but saying Pusha ain’t nice is like saying Kobe ain’t nice. And as much as you might not like Kobe you know for damn sure you respect money’s game cause you KNOW he can go out there and drops 40 on cats and that’s Kobe AFTER the surgery. And it’s the exact same with Pusha cause you may not like him but you mos def better respect money’s game before he drops the dopest hip hop album of the year on ya’ll…and yeah, I know Jay dropped this year too.
4.5 outta 5 mics
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