album review: 'it's almost dry' by pusha t

Maybe it’s my skewed perspective, but the expansion of Pusha T’s career has been absolutely fascinating the past few years. He’s always been a presence in hip-hop circles from his time with Clipse and then taking over as the president of G.O.O.D. Music - and that’s not to compare to his deadly skills as an MC, which if you knew, you knew. But for a while it seemed like he has his own unique niche and lane and couldn’t really break out of that, most as his solo career seemed to either stall out or not attract the attention it should have - see his underwhelming first and criminally overlooked second albums for details on that. Hell, even he had admitted there was a ceiling, even as his reputation spread as a dangerous rapper, gifted composer, and shrewd businessman.

Then 2018 happened, where Pusha T went toe-to-toe with Drake and came out with the win - yes, there was nothing that was going to unseat Drake’s popular appeal with multiple #1 hits from Scorpion and sheer cultural ubiquity, but it was impossible to ignore the body blows Push had inflicted on Drake’s reputation. But more to the point, it catapulted Pusha T into a spotlight in which he touched for years and had been ready for decades - his solo sales soared, DAYTONA became critically acclaimed and widely accepted as the biggest ‘win’ of G.O.O.D Music’s May run of albums outside of Kanye West’s cult of personality, and for a rapper in his 40s he achieved a level of popular name recognition and presence long deserved but rarely achieved, especially for a rapper who didn’t really play the game.

And thus I was intensely curious about how he would follow it up - I might have still been waiting for King Push properly, but rekindling his relationship with The Neptunes for half of his production credits while leveraging Kanye West for the other half meant that Pusha T was coming with all guns blazing, and that’s not even touching the features list where the lingering fallout between Kid Cudi and Kanye made sure Push’s album remained trending in the lead-up. And if that wasn’t going to guarantee things, swinging around to diss McDonalds in favour of Arby’s - inspired because he wrote that original McDonalds jingle - and watching Drake to continue to throw subs showed him stacking up W’s in the lead-up. In other words, everything was all built for this to be a great album, even with ‘Neck & Wrist’ being a disappointment - so did It’s Almost Dry live up to the high expectations?

Well, let me put it like this: for the majority of what Pusha T does extremely well, this album delivers - vicious, grimy, hard-hitting but cleverly layered, the sort of project that if Pusha T is as locked in as he can be, it’s legit great. Unfortunately, that consistently high standard of quality doesn’t always translate to everyone else here, and the few moments where there are slip-ups feel all the more glaring and obvious alongside everything else. So I know this review will come across as nitpicky or otherwise harsh on a great album - and make no mistake, the best moments here sit among Push’s best of his solo career - but I do not think it’s better than DAYTONA or Darkest Before Dawn, both of which have a different flavour of visceral punch that for as much as Pusha T is trying to sound so evil and dark here…

Well, let’s start there, because I always find it a little peculiar whenever mainstream or mainstream-adjacent acts claim they’re going to push their sound into incredibly dark or ‘evil’ territory, maybe even highlighting some type of experimentation… but then you realize this is Pusha T, who has carved out his lane and has his set crew of producers, and those are Kanye and The Neptunes, who have the capacity to make dark music but not to the extent of the truly wild and sinister stuff on the edges of hip-hop that might truly unnerve a larger audience. And this isn’t surprising - Pusha T described how often he would watch Joker in order to get into the right mindset and vibe for this album and that’s kind of revealing that an intensely derivative and mediocre film that rips off Scorsese wholesale is the foundation point for ‘evil’ rather than anything out of horror or exploitation or any of the truly wild dark shit you can find in film. And that sets a limitation that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but is worth keeping in mind: Push will take you on this ride that could be intimidating or harrowing, but he’s not one to intentionally throw you off.

And let’s be clear: that’s not inherently a bad thing, because Pusha T is one of the best in the business at this brand of nasty coke rap with a great snarling voice for it, and when he lets his seething contempt drip between each bar, it’s absolutely effective in setting the vibe - shame the majority of his guest stars never got that message! Yeah, if we’re looking for the first major letdown on this album it’s that a lot of the guests really brought their A-game: I’ve already talked about ‘Neck & Wrist’ on Billboard BREAKDOWN and Jay-Z’s lackluster verse, but Kanye is on this album twice as a rapper and he’s so sloppily mixed both times that you almost don’t notice how he wedges in a bar ‘when daddy’s not home, the family’s in danger’, or how his entire verse on ‘Rock N Roll’ is about his grievances with Kim which once again tries to place him on a pedestal; and forget the issues between Kanye and Kid Cudi for a second, you can very obviously tell that Push is leaning into the family angle on that song to try and make Kanye’s verse feel more cohesive, and it never works because Push knows his pedestal is far from pure but still has value, a purity Kanye still claims but can never back up. And while I actually really liked Don Toliver’s hook on ‘Scrape It Off’ and I’ll give Lil Uzi Vert credit for a good verse here - for him at least - he can’t match Pusha T’s intensity and his presence feels out of place… which raises the question why Rick Ross, Freddie Gibbs, or any of the Griselda crew weren’t called for verses, they would all make more sense on this album! But then there are the odd moments where Pusha T himself sounds more lethargic or is intentionally playing down the intensity to create menace, and it doesn’t always click: the opener ‘Brambleton’ mostly works as a clapback to an old Clipse associate who went on DJ Vlad’s show and claimed all of the stories were pulled from his life - and if you want to launder misinformation through a fed snitch Vlad would be the way to do it - but then there was ‘Call My Bluff’, which is clever but weirdly lethargic and patchy and features a revealing line in wishing his fanbase was more like J. Cole’s, which I’m guessing is referring more to intensity and numbers rather than composition - or a wish that more folks got what he was saying in tying back to Cole’s college audience - but he knows his lane and his demographic, and has openly admitted there’s a ceiling… I just wish he sounded like he cared a little more.

And with all of that… that’s about where my criticisms end, because outside of some production quibbles when it comes with Kanye’s rough mastering or some melodic tones that Pharrell provided that I didn’t quite like the oily melodies behind ‘Brambleton’ and ‘Call My Bluff’, this album does so much well in such a defined lane that it becomes difficult to criticize! I’ve seen some folks complain that Pusha T is only talking about coke or that he doesn’t showcase more dimensionality in his content, and there’s two strong rebuttals to that: one, there’s a stylism and wordplay to it that few can match, and two, when you start digging through the details, Pusha T is saying more than he’d otherwise let on. And while it’s tempting to go line-by-line through some songs, I’d prefer to highlight the shining moments and focus on thematic arcs. I love the haunted sample behind the thicker groove and pianos on ‘Let The Smokers Shine The Coupes’, where in between the bragging Pusha T casually highlights how ‘The dope gang destroyed his youth’, amplifying what he’s given up and highlighting those who faked it all so obviously with no tangible sacrifice beyond credibility - hammered even harder on ‘Just So You Remember‘ where he highlights the rappers who took PPP loans, easily one of the best songs here for its stalking minimalism and lines like ‘purest snow, we sellin’ white privilege’ and ‘designer clothes, these hoes losing innocence’. Then there’s the fantastic Donny Hathaway sample blended across ‘Dreamin Of The Past’ where you get that line ‘award shows the only way you bitches could rob me’ and highlighting how his work only gets better with time, and the gleaming keys from Kanye and 88-Keys on ‘Diet Coke’ which deserves all the acclaim it’s received, even if the content is exactly what you’d expect. Then there’s the wispy ‘Hear Me Clearly’, where not only does Push set his place amidst rap history but highlights the easy disposability of modern rap wealth and clout - he’s looking for those who can back up a legacy and their words, where the cocaine rap speaks to his reality and future where those who dip and dabble die young.

And for those who wanted Pusha T to focus on family and legacy… well, it’s peppered all across the album, but snaps into view most sharply on the final songs, the first being ‘Open Air’ with the organ and woodwinds where for as much as he deals he’s still the one providing for his family and community where the government has not - the line ‘my heart been black, ain’t no hope in here / And we been let down by those s’posed to care’; and with it all being the open, he’s acutely aware that if and when drugs are legalized, he’s going to be on the frontline of the negotiations, that is his power. But it has absolutely taken a toll - beyond the grisly lifestyle, you can tell he’s been burned so many times, and then on the final song ‘I Pray For You’ opposite Labrinth’s wheezy hook and the organ where he admits he’s reluctantly a role model for those who want to go down this same dark path… and then Malice shows up to put forward the other side, not only showing that same level of visceral detail, but also showcasing the bigger picture in the context of his faith. And it’s a great verse that you can argue overshadows Push on this song… but looking at the bigger picture, that’s the point: Malice got out of the rigged game, where he had reaped the spoils but he turned to God for greater fulfillment… but even then, he whispers for God to purge them all. He knows he’s exposed a darker side of himself on this track - it’s why he goes by Malice and not ‘No Malice’ - and it’s reminiscent of the sort of faith you’d see on, say, Lingua Ignota’s SINNER GET READY, an Evangelical faith rooted in blood and fire, where he references the events of Charlottesville and challenges white supremacy to face him with their fires. Place that in the context of Pusha T’s coke dealing in the South, trying to help those he cares about by surrendering his own soul amidst an apocalyptic world where legacy hangs a heavy head, where he describes coke as ‘selling white privilege’ amidst those who will disparage him in white Evangelical churches that will not help, amidst a prosperity gospel of which Push has begrudgingly lived and his peers prosthelytize , where flames of a deeper systemic collapse are lit to be matched as both brothers are each other’s keepers, where they know each other’s vices and sins… and suddenly it makes all too much sense as to why this album is titled It’s Almost Dry, the key word being ‘almost’ in what is likely to come.

What I find most interesting about It’s Almost Dry is not how it’s Pusha T just making another album of coke rap - it’s the bigger picture, where cocaine might be the common element and overflowing symbol to be contextualized again and again, but where Pusha T himself is looking at legacy and family more than ever before. I find it fascinating that he defaults to callbacks to the Joker when there are plenty of better corrupted antiheroes and villains who care about family and who have made ruinous decisions to preserve their own amidst a world full of systems rife for exploitation; shame he takes passing shots at comic book fans in comparing them to rappers with more gaudy jewelry than taste, because Pusha T would fit well in those stylized worlds with a defined lane, but no shortage of stories to be told, maybe closer to the Punisher or Deathstroke or even a bit of Harvey Dent. The next step would be for him to tackle that bigger picture, the larger systemic commentary that has only ever been mentioned in passing but lingers over every scene here - and with Malice’s verse we get some of that scene and the hierarchical structures of the larger world in family and business and capitalism in which Pusha T will hold himself to account if nobody else… but he’s a ruthless pragmatist to a fault and he knows in these scenes he becomes the ‘villain’, even if it’s more for living long enough to be defined in that role. And It’s Almost Dry has you rooting for that villain, although there’s layers even to that; I think Push would prefer more idolize the understanding of the sacrifice and being reborn like the phoenix on the other side rather than just the dealers who see him stacking cash or buying expensive things and want that too. But in a way I think this is more than just a victory lap - even in his lane, new doors have been opened with this, there’s a transitional feel I can’t shake, and for as efficiently great as this album is, only growing on me with every listen, it heralds more to come. As it is, great project - not the best rap album I’ve heard this year or even among his best solo or with Clipse, but it still comes highly recommended, check it out.