For one month this summer, Kanye West\u2019s G.O.O.D. Music made constant waves in the music world with a series of five coordinated weekly album releases, all produced by West from a ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The opener of the cycle was Daytona<\/i>, Pusha T\u2019s long-awaited, much-teased sequel to 2015\u2019s Darkest Before Dawn<\/i>, itself advertised as a prelude for the album to come. The combination of Pusha\u2019s rhymes and West\u2019s production gives fans the payoff for that wait with a propulsive album that wastes none of its 23-minute runtime.<\/p>\n
Pusha T establishes what he\u2019s about from the outset in \u201cIf You Know, You Know,\u201d delivering line after line about his street cred with earned swagger. He rarely deviates from the stereotypical drugs-money-women rap trifecta in the song or indeed the entire album, but he sells it in a way that some aging rappers years removed from the game (looking at you, Hov) can\u2019t. Even for listeners completely foreign to the world he grew up in \u2013 like this humble reviewer \u2013 you\u2019ll find yourself bumping along.<\/p>\n
No other track is quite as hard-charging as the opener, but in \u201cThe Games We Play\u201d and \u201cWhat Would Meek Do?\u201d Pusha comes out swinging again, planting his flag as the king of street cred and daring anyone to snatch it away. Two major figures he\u2019s sure won\u2019t are Lil Wayne and Drake, both of whom he takes brutal shots at on album closer \u201cInfrared.\u201d Drake tried to respond days later with diss track \u201cDuppy Freestyle,\u201d but Pusha\u2019s response, \u201cThe Story Of Adidon,\u201d put matters to rest and sealed the veracity of Daytona<\/i>\u2019s message: if you come at the king, you best not miss.<\/p>\n
For all the lyrical fireworks, the star of the show is the beats, and it\u2019s impossible to know whether to give more credit to Pusha T or Kanye for that. There\u2019s not a bad sample among the album\u2019s seven songs, and each balances perfectly with Pusha\u2019s staccato, precise rapping. These are songs you\u2019ll have stuck in your head for days after you hear them, and you won\u2019t be mad about it.<\/p>\n
The remainder of G.O.O.D. Music\u2019s releases produced mixed results, but they started in style. Daytona <\/i>isn\u2019t flawless (it would have been nice to see Pusha T get outside his lane a little bit in terms of subject matter), but it\u2019s a fiery, tight banger that pulls no punches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10205],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45349","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pusha-t","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45349"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}