Pusha T is inching closer toward the release of his next studio album, which he and Charlamagne Tha God already assured fans will be better than Daytona. He described his 2018 album as his “Purple Tape” in reference to Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx — a pinnacle in Mafioso rap that help lay the blueprint for coke rap as a thriving subgenre.
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Pusha T is still considered one of the greatest coke rappers of all time but the G.O.O.D Music president thinks there’s only one rapper who exceeds him in that category. During a recent interview with Complex, the rapper broke down his top 3 coke rappers of all time where he listed himself at #2 with Jay-Z sitting at the top spot.
“Hov is first, because he made Reasonable Doubt, and that is the grail of all drug levels, without being all about drugs. It spoke more to the lifestyle,” Push said of his top 3 coke rappers. “Lyrically, I’m going to say that I’m next. And I’ll say Jeezy is third, because I don’t believe there was a stronger moment in time than Trap or Die.”
Push later recanted claims that his new project wouldn’t be focused on coke as he mentioned earlier this year. “I was only fucking joking,” he said.
Still, Push expanded on his feelings towards the term “coke rap” in hip-hop, explaining that the term is “lazy way of describing” his craft. “It’s funny, because I come under a lot of scrutiny for the term ‘coke rap’,” he said. “Either they’re knocking it or they’re finding ways to cheapen it. Like, I drop an album, I go through a cycle and by the time the album cycle is done, then it’s back to, ‘Oh, it’s only this, it’s only that.’ And then I watch the same people who shoot down the genre when I’m at it, they’ll sit back. Then, in my absence, it turns into, ‘Oh man, this is great lyricism.’”