you wanna see a dead body? it turns out, they can’t kill kenny. even after calling out the ten-years-his-senior rapper, King Push, on “Control,” kendrick lamar and your favorite drug dealer’s favorite rapper still managed to produce one of hip-hop’s most powerful collabs in a Toronto minute.
rap music grabs at Spielberg-level fantasy where it used to flaunt Scorsese-style grit. if there isn’t a corrections officer trying to convince you he’s a kingpin, there’s a former tv star auditioning for General Hospital in his ballads. the white guys are in the trap. the trappers aren’t rappers at all, if you hear them tell it. overall honesty and realism has taken a backseat to theater and melodrama.
so when pusha t graced the fans with some of that raw, uncut, strung-out, macabre, doleful dopeboy dizziness…it’s like he woke listeners from a dream into a 90s Crack Era living room.