Pusha T has been bodying verses for as long as anyone has heard him, but his latest release, the noticeably concise DAYTONA, has the younger Thornton brother sounding the most deliberate he’s been since Clipse’s 2006 LP Hell Hath No Fury.
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During discussions to coronate the rollout, Pusha used wordplay to refer to the Rolex DAYTONA wristwatch. “DAYTONA reflects that I have the luxury of time,” he wrote. That luxury is one that he basked in, as five years have passed since the original album title — formerly titled King Push — was revealed in 2013.
The seven-track album goes the distance to add further refinement and distillation to the steely, luxurious drug raps that earned him rap relevance. “I predict snow, Al Roker,” he quips on the intro “If You Know You Know.” He occasionally extols himself as a pioneer, taking credit for “showing rappers how to stand on the front lines when trappers started throwing bands” on “If You Know You Know,” and for being one of the first to diss Birdman for screwing over an artist named Dwayne Carter on album closer “Infrared.” (The record also calls out Drake for hiring co-writers but you already know that.) Yet DAYTONA largely showcases the raps themselves, while shouting out a roster of rap greats, everyone from De La Soul and Will Smith to DMX, The LOX and JAY-Z. “To all of my young niggas, I am your Ghost and your Rae/this is my Purple Tape, save it for ‘Rainy Dayz’,” he spits on “The Games We Play.”
What’s also apparent is the return to form for Kanye West — The Maestro. He’s garnered criticism in recent years for allowing other producers to push the keys while he conducts the big picture vision, but here, he proves he hasn’t lost his penchant for commanding the show. Neither the noisiness of Life Of Pablo, the discordance of Yeezus, or the opulent orchestras of Dark Twisted Fantasy are here; Kanye equips Pusha with a palette that maintains focus without sacrificing dynamism. “The Games We Play” uses western Kill Bill-styled guitar plucks, “Come Back Baby” employs a soul sample for the chorus, and “If You Know You Know” shows off Ye’s expert vocal chops. “Santeria” resurrects the wailing strings sampled on Lil Kim’s “Drugs” — complete with Spanish Harlem garnishment — before cinematically sliding into an ominous creep. It’s a fitting backdrop for some of the grimmest, relentlessly murderous raps Pusha has ever rhymed, only briefly interrupted by a heartfelt reference to his slain tour manager De’Von Pickett.
The album is only seven songs and 21 minutes long, but Kanye covers a lot of ground sonically without getting scatterbrained. A small misstep does arise via his guest verse on “What Would Meek Do,” with its provocative racial politics and insight into family tragedy that feel out of place alongside Pusha T’s cold-hearted raps.
Ye clearly took his role of executive producer seriously here, which also attributes to DAYTONA running in at a trim 21 minutes (which is even shorter than Darkest Before Dawn, which clocked in at about a half-hour). DAYTONA doesn’t have peaks as high as “Grindin,” “Keys Open Doors” or “Nosetalgia,” but it doesn’t have the dead weight of some of those albums either: the shorter play length means fewer mistakes. Critiques of Pusha’s lack of evolution are a matter of perspective. Sticking to his guns gives him a higher bar of excellence to meet — if he’s going to continue doing coke rap nearly 20 years into his career, it better be good. Instead of expanding his table of contents, he doubles down on straightforward tales of coke, guns and lavish living. As a result, what once was considered rigidity has now become dedication.
Yes, recent highbrow rap has focused on conceptual depth and vulnerability but no one will ever be able to accuse Pusha T of abandoning who he is artistically. Despite appearing on hit records, writing corporate slogans and becoming the president of a label that’s as artsy as it is street, that integrity as just commendable as a platinum plaque.
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Darkest Til Dawn and My Name had better production…I appreciate Kanye digging in the crates again, but he’s not outdoing his old self or any current producers with the same style…9th, madlib, oh no, hi tek, jake one, pete rock, large pro, preemo….all these dudes pushing beats that top Daytona production….Ye is back to being the student again! The bars are predictable, dope, but don’t insight FEELING or STYLE. Pusha debut was a fucking classic yo!
Hit it on the head really. The production is great the lyrics are excellent the concept was innovative. However these things do not mesh together to make great songs. These sound like grade a freestyles over a1 production. Rick Ross raps this style with better emotion and tbh I was disappointed that Kanye did not come with a revolutionary sound as usual. This sounds like a step back for Kanye.
Dope 4/5
Pusha’s best body of work (which says a lot). Concise, lyrically flawless, and the production fits the grittiness of the album.
HIS BEST BODY OF WORK IS 21 MINS LONG? PLEASE STFU
Quality over quantity! Michael Jackson’s best body of work has 9 songs. 4:44 is a little over 30 mins. I don’t know what length has to do with the music.
I will say that if you are a stinky black Negroid behind on his or her child support payments, if you use an EBT card every day, if you eat watermelon and fried chicken obsessively, if you often like to exclaim, “Hodee do’! Hodee do’! Conebread! Conebread!” for no apparent reason while shucking and jiving all over the street, you will like this album. Otherwise, you will hate this album.
Reply 4
a album in 2018 that glorifies selling drugs…21 mins long and not a single song anyone will remember in a month. how the fuck is this ALMOST A 5?
I understand it’s subjective so peeps might disagree but Yep, I completely agree with you… Boring, predictable and uninspiring… No memorable tracks… the one positive is that I can actually understand what he’s saying… no where near a 5.!
You have to come from a certain era to appreciate this. This is not for your average commentor scrap. Y’all probably think jadakiss is boring and Raekwon is wack lol.
This may not be a classic. But it’s gotta be in the hip-hop top 3 of 2018, at least. I hit repeat before the last song was over.
IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW.
Top 3 please! BOOK OF Ryan and Prhyme 2 dropped, so did Black Panther Soundtrack, J.Cole KOD In Celebration Of Us, Czarface, Victory Lap, G-Host, Weather Or Not, August Greene and this album is already forgotten because of the Drake beef.
Black Panther soundtrack WTF? LOL. But yeah this ain’t top 3 or 5. Maybe 10.
I love Royce but I found Prhyme 2 totally lacking what I loved about 1. I haven’t gave “Book Of Ryan” a listen yet. I do agree on Black Panther. That was great.
1. Dr. Octagon: Moosebumps, 2. Czarface Meets Metal Face, 3. Daytona
Really? Better than evidence, prhyme, Royce, styles p and ghostface? Don’t get me wrong I’m a huge pusha fan and a huge fan of czarface and doom. And of course to say these are your three favourite records this is as absolutely fine. But to subjectively and unbiasedly say they are all musically and lyrically better than all other albums this year so far is a stretch in my eyes; especially Daytona. The other two maybe.
Not sure why they only put out 7 songs and call this an album. Plus all the songs are short. I see what they did with that little PR stunt dissing Drake. What a coincidence its the same time as album release!!!
No problem with the short length of the album however Come Back Baby is weak apart from the sample, which only makes it even shorter.
My problem is that it was garbage.
This album is a solid 3. It will be forgotten by mid next month its like KOD to Cole. 10 tracks something like 30-35mins with more subject matter besides coke music could have saved this predictable average work he should have studied Talib and Styles P The Seven! How you give it a 4.3 and called Venom predictable/blunt and gave it a 2.9 means DX peeps be high on coke ahaha.
shits short but gr8
this is not an album!!!. It’s an EP with 7 songs on it. you can rate this album a 4.3 but you give Chris Orrick – Portraits a 3.2 just because he packs cathartic qualities but “wallows” too hard, also y’all give U-God – Venom a 2.9 was beyond disrespectful on so many levels. yes, Pusha T can rap his ass off but this EP wasn’t that impressive because the production was shit.
EP is still an album. An extended play album. Also, the production is avante garde/eclectic.
it’s not an extended play album you above average dumb ass motherfucker. how can it be an extended play album with only 7 songs on this bitch and also the production is avant garde? who the fuck told you that crock of bullshit. the production on Portraits was avant garde, the production on Anchovies was avant garde, the production on Prhyme 2 was avant garde, the production on Brick Body Kids Still Daydream was avant garde. the production on this “extended play album” was a whole big carton of dumpster juice.
LOL production on Anchovies is not avant garde, its that drumless bullshit everybody in underground is doing now. And Prhyme 2 are regular Preemo beats, just little updated.
a collection of tracks (album) duh ? and the album’s production is avant- garde (experimental) because a lot of rappers not use these type of beats. oh yeah you so disrespectful!!! stop it!!
A little short but good enough
Stop calling it an album. It’s an EP. And that’s okay, let’s just not lie about it lol
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item. While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, in the United States, The Recording Academy’s rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement.
I ain’t the Grammy’s, and DAYTONA ain’t an album. It’s a glorified EP. It still jams though.
Within a Month everybody has forgotten this mediocre album with repetitive shit about selling coke. Beats suck too. You want gangstarrap then listen to 80 and 90’s rap.
Shut up beta male. You wanna simp for a bitch, go listen to R and B
Easily dopest tape this year
Classic. Nas even said it.
Otherworldly bars.
The flow of the album just come together one of the only albums i dont listen on shuffle
Bruh… a really good album, YOU SHOULD NOT, listen on shuffle, there is a reason for the order…sequencing my man, sequencing…
Luxury rap, Instant classic, for fans of of real hip hop – CLASSIC BARS, quotable lines, bangers, a presence, personality, swagger, Ye back to his best, diss tracks > pep talks
King Push put out a nice project dropped some knowledge.
I’m sorry but The Games we play, Come back Baby & Hard Piano definitely peak as high as Grindin, Keys open doors & definitely Nosetalgia. Are you serious?! This shit is crazy AND it grows on you. Kanye was in his bag…
Yh it’s all part of a reveal to his performance art thing Ye is doing. There is a loads of hints at the “puzzle” with the Get Out references and other shit
Push isn’t that deep or talented. Knock it off.
Classic.
Sidebar: Duppy was weak
that is a fact on both fronts
Lyrically Top album of 2018! This is the definition of making a bare bones root album! Not a stick is loose!
I never stopped listening to My Name is My Name and I will probably never stop listening to DAYTONA neither. Dopest shit Ive heard in a while. Beats are raw and every damn line Push drops is a quotable.
Haven’t listened yet, but for all the people complaining about length, would you rather have 10 filler tracks that were thrown on to pad the length but degrade the quality?
Best album I’ve heard this year. All the songs were great. I wish there we’re a couple more verses on some of the songs but other than that Pusha showed why he’s one of the best in the game!
Superior bars and flow! I love the eclectic samples in the production! Classic? Might be!!!
Best hip hop album in years
DUPPY – Unfortuantly Drake just ended the hype for this album… He destroyed him
Drake and his crack team of writers came close to how good pusha t actually is but not really grabbing the bar. Its sad that anyone can even consider a battle by a team of writers/Pr stunt people is actually good? I mean yeah some of the bars were dope but can anyone really respect that shit.
How do you know Drake didnt write that himself? The Pablo line was hilarious. I’d prefer Pusha as a rapper but duppy was better than Infared. Anyway Pusha going to respond in 24 hours so let wait n see.
It’s garbage
Great project.
Amazing.
Awful
First of all to all you Drake lovin’ goof balls, that ‘Duppy’ bullshit doesn’t dull the shine of ‘DAYTONA’ in no way shape form or fashion. Classic HipHop will not only stand the test of time, but will also shun any attempt to devalue it or bury it’s message. ‘Infrared’ SHITS on that lazy ass ghost-written ‘freestyle’ (if you even want to call it that). 5/5 for me! PUSH!!
Illmatic was really only 8 tracks long…
9*
8…the first song is just an intro with no rapping
illmatic is a intro with 9 songs
The genesis
Ny state of mind
Life’s a bitch
The world is yours
Halftime
Memory lane
One love
One time for ur mind
Represent
It ain’t hard to tell
That 1 intro and 9 songs boy
The genesis
Ny state of mind
Life’s a bitch
The world is yours
Halftime
Memory lane
One love
One time for ur mind
Represent
It ain’t hard to tell k
That 1 intro and 9 songs boy
Only issue is it is too short. 21 mins… on the other hand it allows me to listen it more. Good lyrics, love the beats, Infrared is a great way to close it out where he drops some gems. Only giving it a 5 because I can’t give half stars. To me this is top 2 with Royce. KOD is in at 3rd. Maybe in the next 4 weeks it will all change.
If you listen to this project all the way through, it makes the Duppy freestyle seem absolutely laughable. Push not top 5 on his own label? Come on Drake… that’s as real as you writing your own lyrics.
This is good – Pusha sounds so in control of his raps & content, its brilliant. Ye killed the production!!
How can people be so hard on someone who they believe uses a team of writers but respect someone who only raps about one thing (very limited subject matter) and as something that they are not! He was never a big time drug dealer. When did that become ok? To me it is just as bad if not worse.
“Fear not the man who has trained 10000 kicks once, fear the man who has trained one kick 10000 times”. – Bruce Lee. Drake is an ok singer/good rapper that makes a variety of generally ok/good music, Push is a master at the one style and being able to make that hustle and lifestyle relatable to the masses is harder than half singing your way through generic shit. Drake never gets deep in his music, push has (sunshine, hold on, 40 acres). As for the claims of ghostwriting, we know for a fact it is true, not something we believe.
If you don’t understand it by now you never will, so just do you and stop whining about something you clearly don’t and will never understand.
I liked Darkest before dawn better. This just seems like a couple of tracks mixed together. Kanye made good beats. I never was a fan of Pusha’s pushing rhymes but he was never wack. This record too short. And … I hate the cover. Knowing Kanye’s attention to privacy you’d think he should have known better. And the fact that Ye took over Pusha’s vision of the album, maybe I’m wrong that’s just personal perception. And… there’s not that many great bars. Overall … average. A little disappointed. But if Nas said it’s a classic, well he kniws better than I. I found the lenghtg of this album perfect for my excercises time so that’s a plus 🙂
I Actually listened to this album and really enjoyed it, i give it a solid 4.5/5. But Unfortunately Drake completely terrorized Pusha T. Drakes verses and material uses more content and is definitely more relatable. Pusha T has been using the same coke metaphors since 2006…Drake is a way more versatile singer song witter and as he proved to us in Duppy, Lyricist. But Pusha T did hold his own In his Response.
Pusha’s focus over Kanye’s samples makes this album a classic. 4.7 is my rating
This is a good-great album. Kanye did his thing behind the boards, Pushas rhymes are dope. To call it a “classic” is stretching it, especially only being 7 songs deep, but its def a must have. I wish Push wouldve avoided the tried and tested method of dissing the biggest rapper out there (a la Rick Ross when he went at 50) to gain sales but I guess that is part of the marketing nowadays; beef sells.
Anyhow- I hope that Nas or Kanyes upcoming solo projects are a bit longer and a bit more cohesive start to finish. Can never have too many Ye beats so it should be an exciting summer for hip hop
all the upcoming albums are seven tracks long…even Nas’.
I’ve listened to this over and over for days now and honestly it’s as disappointing now as I was when I first heard it. Yes push it great. Yes his bars are always fire and the bars on this entire project meet that standard. But it’s not a good album, to call it an album is a long shot; 5 years after announcing king push and telling us it’ll be the greatest record ever, 3 years after the last record (i think) and we get 21 minutes of rap over a few of the weakest beats I’ve ever heard him touch. Kanyes done, in my opinion the entire project has three, maybe four good instrumentals and unfortunately Kanye absolutely ruins the song that according to push was supposed to have meek on it. Now I don’t even like meek but Kanye the Super producer who had the power and authority to change the name and cut a song the day before its release then decided to plant himself along side push and be awful. I can’t give it a pass no matter how good push is. Half the beats sound lazy and flat but people will call that genius, ok; forgetting ye’s back catalogue of production I guess. It felt like a mixtape all the way through…I feel like his last two albums were better and more anthemic like we come to expect from push. I won’t be playing more than one or two of these songs after a year or so. If you know you know, hard piano and Santeria are great but even so it doesn’t make up for the minuscule amount of music on this “album” and i wouldn’t say they’re better than any of his bigger tracks and classics. 3.5/5
Some retard st hiphopdx called this an lp when its 7 songs and 21 minutes long? Ummmm that’s an e.p. fucktardi
Kanye’s best production in a long time on here. Pusha is a beast on the mic, but he’s so one dimensional and predictable. After all these years he’s still obsessed with the idea of being a cocaine kingpin.
I listened to this album about 10x and I love the flows and beats. If You Know You Know is my favorite track on there followed by Come Back Baby, then Santeria.
IMO Pusha should not respond until the bulk of his 1st week sales are in. No need to divert any attention from the new album you just dropped. If possible even adding the response for Duppy to the digital version would be a chess move. Sorta like how Kanye added songs to TLOP.
Arguably, Push’s best solo work to date; inarguably, his most concise. The production is top-shelf and Push brought his A-game. “The Games We Play” will be in my rotation forever. 4.5/5
7 tracks? This a EP bro……Pusha played us…..we waited damn near 5 years for a EP lol
I said it before and I will say it again…this album is spectacular!
King Push!
Classic!!! Period!!
Not a Classic!!! Period!!
I want more. I need two summers back to back of this.
Tired Kanye beats, tired fake drug raps from Pusha (yawn). No one will listen to this EP in 2 weeks
just here to show you how wrong you were, Daytona’s a classic and has been since release
It’s lite
Solid. It’s hard to listen to Pusha T rap about cocaine for an hour, but 21 minutes is perfect.
definitely Pusha’s best album! I love the production sampling and the fact that it’s only 7 tracks of quality hip hop.
great album
Bruh this album IS A CLASSIC..ALL TIME!!! I SWEAR THE MOOD, BOSS TALK, THE PRODUCTION, REPLAY VALUE. I WANT THE OTHER HALF.. PUSHA CHANGED KING PUSH TO DAYTONA. 9.6
Great Album. An album doesn’t have to be 2 disc/ 40 tracks to be great. Cut the fillers and trim the fat! Big dog status!
weak, the only thing interesting about Pusha T was the Drake beef every song on here is forgettable.
Here to offset the Drake stans
This is king push.
This isn’t a surgical summer its Beehive summer featuring Jay Z. Their album 5/5 on HHDX. This shit is 1/5
Exactly the album everyone knew Pusha and Kanye could make
One the top 5 albums of the year
Top 3 albums of 2018. So dope