How Pusha T Went From The Clipse to Head of G.O.O.D. Music | Blueprint

[Music] rapper entrepreneur and label head push a tee redefine the sound of the streets and then went on to become the head of Kanye West's GOOD Music this is his blueprint so how did you meet chatted for up we all lived minutes within each other but all because of zoning went to different schools we had a mutual friend and my brother at the time was rhyming with Tim Berlin they would all them being older Ferrell my brother they would all go down to the oceanfront and you know just rhyme in a circle he just came out I was like listen your brother that's gene that's your brother I'm like yeah he was like man he's so nice I want him to work with me like I want him to rap with me you know so on and so forth and I was like oh okay Tim Berlin leaving going to work with Jodeci and all of that is what made room for my brother and Pharrell to connect you got into the music probably in the middle of high school yeah definitely I would say middle of high school we'd get up in the morning we skip school we go to Chad's house we take Chad's house over all day until about 3 o'clock that's when his mother would come home rapping and songwriting was like was everything that was going on in that house and I wasn't doing any of it I was just sitting there and just soaking it up saying what's hot was not what you probably shouldn't say that so how did you get your skills up one day I just picked up a pen I was like man I'm a write me reverse then everybody liked it and and my brother would take so long to write three verses Pharrell was like gosh you just be like Cain and Abel y'all brothers nice job dog skiing our two dogs can brothers nobody's done this and then he just has wills to start turning at the same time you're doing other things that are business-related okay can you tell me you know some of the illegal activities that you were involved with how they sort of impacted your thinking about how business works well at the time you know the drug culture was so heavy just anywhere where I lived it it was a thing of what there was just what the kids did that was that was the mischief at that time man you just really needed to show and prove you needed to have money you had to have money you had to go get it you had to you wanted to live you wanted to see things you wanted to do things she wanted to have things and that was the only way to do it my brother being five years older than me the big difference was it was cool for them to wrap by the time I got in high school it wasn't really cool for me to say that like I'm a rapper I'm like I'm like rapping my friends were like look at the guys who are like rapping in the hallway like what the [ __ ] are y'all doing selling drugs is what you did the cool guys that's what they did you might have played sports if you were nice and if you you feel super nice you could do both I just couldn't play basketball but um college was sort of on yeah alright I went to Norfolk State University for one year okay and then I went to Ty water Community College and as I was born the Community College I was coming to New York every every week at this point trying to like shop a demo coming my me my brother Pharrell Chad running in New York at this time I was like taking like anatomy physiology and things like they think that you cannot miss school to you know to uh to excel in and needless to say that didn't work so I dropped out of Community College and started pursuing music full-time yeah for sure okay when the clips get their first deal right things go a little bit of riot electro right yes so what went wrong I think I can safely say that the clips got their first deal off of the success of The Neptunes production okay and and not the production that was due to us production that they did for ol Dirty Bastard or Kelis at the time or maybe it was Noriega yeah and so you know to appease the Neptune's I believe Sylvia Rhone who's the CEO gave us a deal as well and you know we put together this album called exclusive audio footage I remember watching my video on HBO the funeral the funeral video and soon after watching it on HBO I found out I was dropped from the label you're about 21 years old yes for sure was this dispiriting or frightening in any way no we never felt defeated at that time music was so fun music was top 100 percent totally new to me my brother on the other hand you know from rap groups with Tim Berlin going through the just solo artist thing with Pharrell and Chad maybe a couple more doors were closed in his face but man at that time it was just get back in the studio keep creating it was just a great time I mean we had we had we had first dibs on everything they had to kill the producer and we had to kill the rappers and that's that was the whole premise of Lord willin so when you get grinded ya finish that in the studio yeah did you know instantly this is going to be a huge hit record no way I realized we had something by my shows when grindin came out man I really I really did every $1500 show for every drug dealer in the United States of America I met every brown-bag promoter because they understood the lingo of that song they understood the cryptic you know four and a half we'll get you in the game they they got it off rip kids who were just dialing into the beat and loving the dances and whatever the case may be you know they just loved it for that but the guys who were like booking me around the country oh man they loved it a whole another way I did birthday parties for people and I just performed the song me my brother would perform the song five ten times and it would just be 50 people a neighborhood of just friends and do it again and that's it and and I'm like oh man like okay yeah y'all y'all get it like they get it and I did that we did that for like seven to nine months when did you know that this was not going to go down like the funeral that we want heiress to records at the time I came to the office one day and happened to stumble upon the music marketing meeting or radio meeting la Reed was discussing the records not charting or the records that we had in the lineup not charting he picked up the media base and said and this look at this he said this records been at 70 spins for three weeks and I know we haven't put any money into this so that means that means that this record got legs of his own as a matter of fact that means if this record does not go I'm firing death and I was buying it in the host night oh man like although this guy's not gonna let us fail with support from their label and a massive album under their belt things seemed on track for the clips but that success would soon come to a grinding halt so how did your life change when Lord willing came out and was a success my life was just it was amazing I mean it was it was it was you know more notoriety all I cared about was local fame you know and I was locally famous you have this massive success right things seem to be going very you know according to plan right and then the Train sort of derails yes what happened what happened was the record label Erised dissolved in the acts went to jive at the time job was a heavy pop label that led to a four-year hiatus we actually got to see the how long a hit record can stretch after that came the rehab gang mixtape series and ultimately hell hath no fury we're in that four-year stretch did you get to the point where you started to get either a really frustrated or be really concerned about the state of your career we got a double XL rating and I remember the sales we probably did like 120 the first year I mean first time with Lord willing and then the sales for hell hath no fury were somewhere around 70 i far believed hell hath no fury was ten times better in lord willing still to to this day and I could not understand how the critical acclaim did not match up to the commercial success I was just like wait a minute this is where all those disconnects that were happening you know affect us basically where you don't have the label engage radio wise where you know the PR wasn't you know all the way there by this time I had got kicked I had got banned from jive like the like to physically walk into job I was banned oh that my marketing person at the time at jive had said it was not important for me to do 106 & Park I blacked out I just I was angry and I like called up there giving terroristic threats you know I mean that's what I read that's what it reads and I just knew like this is not how this is supposed to work how much more comprehensive was your understanding of the business though when you came out on the other side of this we were so engulfed in the business of it that we neglected the fans but as soon as we did start putting our music and I believe that's when the real gaming stapes came to me that's when we saw the worth of like putting out content you know the real internet darlings being internet darlings the clips had what we call them clips ters like you know hipster clips fans or whatever we call them clips ters and we saw that like man there's a whole nother tier and a whole nother level of fan and and in medium that people are listening to music through you know I remember being angry with Clinton sparks I'm like we got our mixtape it's all over the internet but the streets don't know you know anything about we got it for cheap Volume one what is the problem that's me not understanding that like you know this wave is a new something new that's going on right now and clean was just like man you've gotta bear with me you don't understand people love it they're writing about it I'm like man I don't mean nothing to me I can't go into a mom-and-pop store and get my mixtape that means the streets is not getting it the streets weren't they really weren't but he was just first he was ahead of his time so going into the third record what was your mind state because the music that you guys ended up making the formula was totally different on that one we were trying to attack bases like but like we were trying to attack radio here we were with Keri Hilson I don't even a name of song what is the name of that song Noah oh my god man I don't know but we tried to attack radio with that one we tried to attack radio with I'm good we service the streets with camera and the clips in camera on popular demand I see I know that one here da record yeah had and kind of like a big deal but we were just we were just trying to flood every audience that we thought was tuned into the clips we wanted to service each and every one of them never have made an album like that in my life how do you go from there to the breakup of the group well that was 2009 and at the time everybody that I came into the music business with was indited on a federal drug charge these were the people behind the scenes everybody yeah every every friend every person in the video it was like nine of them they were all day one with me and my brother just part of you know what it is was the makeup of the clips period I feel like my brother attributed a lot of what went wrong in the music business to how things turned out for them at the time everybody was you know we were all making money together we were all in the music business when you stop for four years in the music business you got to go back to getting money the best way you know how and those guys were experts and so then how does that change the group dynamic between you and your brother well I think you hit everybody hard but I think it hit him a little bit harder because you know families are involved children are involved I don't have children you know he has children he has children they play with their children you know it's different for him they go to Bible study together you know he sees it a little different I feel like he was over it ya how did he articulate that to you he gave me a handwritten book we were on the road and he was like you want to be a you want to be a solo artist you should I think you should I should be good for you and this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna start rapping I'm gonna but I want you to read my book and that was it near you were about to perform together yes 100% I was in a hotel room I was in a hotel room going to perform that night and that was it what was your first thought I don't question my brother about anything he's my older brother like I don't question him about nothing zero so you took the book and I took the book I read the book you know day for day and you know I told him what I thought about it and I don't think I've ever questioned him one time about that nowadays like we just come up on the 10th anniversary of hell hath no fury you know offer is getting high hundreds of thousands to perform top to bottom let's do ten cities whatever I just recently got the nerve to ask him you know do you want to do it or I'll just tell him like hey you know I don't want to like just telling you like talking about 800 bands right now like you know that's we're stopping weaning a solo Merc she had enough to know but you know where it can go and then he says no I don't want to do it and I'm like okay at this point you know are you concerned are you worried about what this means for your career for some reason I always just felt I would get a shot and I just always thought I would just go solo and I will be a professional rap artist on a major label going solo I never had the thought that I wasn't gonna you know be able to put out a solo album or three what was the strategy for you to get from clips coming off of a lukewarm record hmm the group dissolves it's kind of things are a little murky yeah to get from there to push a tee on Def Jam you know solo artist um well the the process was after that murky record till the casket drops soon after that man I think Kanye or Don see somebody loved my freedom verse from till the casket drop and they reached out for me to come to Hawaii My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy time a good Friday time when you're out there working on this record did you have any sense that this relationship was going to go any further than simply helping him with twisted fantasy yeah I mean I knew I was gonna like the guy I knew that he was decent he was like a decent individual I've never had someone open up an album to me that was theirs like he was like hey this is my album I like how you wrap you can write to anything on this album and [Music] you know if it's great it's great if it's not it's not but you know you could have it all here taking so gorgeous all these great records I'm just writing verses for now mind you wearing wearing Hawaii the day starts off early we play basketball every morning we eat breakfast together every day it got to the point once I realized that he was like really letting me do what I want like like really write to his whole album to everything I thought was great I skipped basketball everyday I stopped eating breakfast with everybody I didn't y'all can go do that this is what I want to do I'm like this is what I'm gonna do and that turned into seven verses we got trimmed down to to run away and so appalled which is fine I was good two out of seven is great how did he broach you know you joining good music oh he just kind of said it he was like oh man you know yeah you're here now so you know you know trying to get a record deal is usually a long-winded situation you're going back and forth and it's sort of different when it's with Kanye West because it's like he just was really like yo what do you need you know just tell them what you need let that happen over there let us just go create over here Kanye saw the potential for pusher to be more than an artist and soon recruited him to a permanent position within his inner circle how do you go from having that conversation joining the label to then becoming the president of the label he respected my opinion I'm super opinionated about everything when it comes to the music I feel like we're a team over there people are super critical of good music and especially of him and I think in regards to that when articulating everything that has to do with us period and I'm thinking about everybody I'm thinking about us as a whole I'm thinking about you know the whole team Shawn whoever if it's their time then it's their time and that's what we speak on I just try to give the most objective and the best opinions you are unflinchingly honest in with Kanye with all the artists that you deal with you know in an environment with people who have egos who are artists who are exposing themselves with you know some insecurity around that how do you couch that in a way that your feedback is received you know positively and doesn't sting well I feel like everybody understands that nothing is coming from a malicious place with me I admire damn near everybody here on the label there's nothing that I haven't asked from all of them at some particular point so it's not that I think that any one person is lacking in some capacity or if I say something's like I'm picking on somebody no I I just speak twit I feel like I'm the most outside artist on good music as far as I'm the actual person who's actually in the club I'm actually in the street I'm actually I'm through all of the mixes I am so when you take the helm of president of good music what was your personal goal for that position my personal goal for for good music was just to make sure that those releases that could come out on time could come out you know Sean's an independent super independent artist he's gonna do his thing regardless he's gonna go you know you have things like Pablo you can't can't control that at all and and I'm saying that being a person that like he'll call and say hey come to New York let's listen to Pablo down let's let's tell me what you think let's let's put this in order and we get down to 12 songs and everybody's high five and then we leave and we wake up in the morning it's back in nineteen songs again and you know you can't control that they'll meet I mean me personally I can't control that that's that's him and that's his that's his art and that's his thing you know when you reflect on in the last few years running the label yeah what is the achievement here the most proud of seeing designer really come of age people seem to forget designer is 19 years old you know he was probably 17 when he made that record 16 million singles today this kid is from Brooklyn raw energy melodic watching that success like watching that happen for him and and hopefully watching it grow into something else you know I feel like this is phase one of him it's just it's just watching that play out and then watching him play out and watching him get the looks he's gotten that's my calling in hip hop I never want to be like the greats that I looked up to in regards to embracing new energy new hip hop new subgenres of the genre I never want to be that guy because I feel like all the greats that I loved except for maybe two aren't here because they didn't embrace a new young energy and I think they were very dismissive and very critical and hypocritical and you know this thing how it was in the 80s we had what a 90s had to be like what a to thousands had like they all kept that energy and that that's not an energy for growth so if I'm a young artist aspiring to get on mm-hmm why do I want to sign to good music you want to sign a good music because a the artistic freedom we don't hold you back at all in any capacity the mere notion of signing to good music and being able to work in the group of creatives that is in our fold is second to none it's a creative amusement-park period like if you're if you're about creativity and you're about being great and in doing exactly what it is that you want and you know how to articulate that and make us believe we can make the world believe you're coming up on about 20 21 years in the music industry now yes reflect back on that time a lot of artists have come and gone right and while you may not have had some of the super Peaks right that those artists have had you have had the longevity that almost none of them have what are the attributes that you think are most sort of important to that sustaining that success sustaining success has a lot to do with creative consistency to me people know what they're getting from the Pusha T brand like I feel like I haven't missed any one thing that has happened and I think I've been a part of every era in some capacity and in even if I wasn't active I was still out and knowing what was going on and I was still looking at it and seeing where I couldn't cert myself into it how can I compete with the new rhyme patterns how do you compete with that how do you step up your your personal rhyme patterns to even compete with that I felt like I've carved out a lane in my ear you either love or push your t song or you hate it but you you know it's a push your T song not some people don't even choose those beats to rap over would never choose those beats to rap over when you think about being the president of this label and being you know an industry player what are the attributes about your personality that you think are the most important to the success their honesty honestly I don't I don't lie to anyone about anything in regards to their career in regards to their music if I'm not into it I'm not into it if I don't like it if I think you're moving wrong I'm gonna tell you and if you are receptive to that we will have the best relationship ever cuz my transparency is my gift I can give you I'm gonna tell you everything I know I'm gonna tell you everything I know I'm gonna tell you all of the truths I'm not gonna nickname it I don't know how to deal in that type of business and like you know telling half truths and lying about business because it's so near and dear to me like this business takes care of everything it takes care of my family other people's families I don't toy with that [Music] you

Channel: Complex

Views: 645,931

Rating: 4.9244747 out of 5

Keywords: sneakerhead, complex, complex originals, news, complex media, Clipse, Virginia, coke rap, blueprint the show, pusha T, pharrell williams, the neptunes, timbaland, Noah Callahan-Bever, Chad Hugo, Jodeci, Kanye West, Desiigner, GOOD Music, No Malice, elektra, jive records, lord willin, grindin, til the casket drops, ODB, kelis, noreaga, sylvia rhone, LA Reid, Arista Records, re-up gang, hell hath no fury, clinton sparks, cam’ron, def jam, drugs, GOOD Fridays, Big Sean

Id: eGyDzobKMy0

Length: 28min 32sec (1712 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 16 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Brokarucci]

Unstoppable.

[u/VitoCorleone187Um]

When I grow up I wanna be like king push

[u/Gingerslayr7]

Great interview

[u/DreamCatcher24]

I'm still cheesed that Lord Willin isn't on Spotify