Pusha T Is Fucking Awesome

Photo credit: Ellie Pritts

We waited. He was supposed to be on at 4:15. He didn’t show. We waited longer. We thought he would come on at 4:20. He still didn’t show. We waited. 4:25. Nothing. 4:30. Nothing. 4:35. Nothing. Still waiting. Longer. Longer. Longer. 4:40. Nothing. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And then it happened.

“EGHCK.”

Pusha T’s voice boomed across the crowd from the main stage of Pitchfork Music Festival. He walked up, doing the thing that Pusha T always does when he walks—this beautiful and bizarre blend of stoicism, arrogance, and anger. He was dressed in all black. His hair was in braids. His scowl was perfect. As the blooming beat of “King Push” filled the air, and the every member of the crowd immediately forgot and didn’t care that they’d waited 30-plus minutes for the rapper at a music festival, which is a place where “waiting for performers” is not a thing because there’s a rigorous schedule to stick to—unless, apparently, you’re Pusha T.

His went on and did a set that lasted maybe 40 minutes long, just a little bit over the amount of time people waited for him to show up. But who cares? He treated us with a handful of selections from his phenomenal album My Name Is My Name—“Hold On,” “Nosetalgia,” “Sweet Serenade,” and “Numbers on the Board”—and because he’s arguably one of the best feature rappers ever, he didn’t shy from renditions, doing verses from “So Appalled,” “Runaway,” “I Don’t Like,” “Mercy,” and “Move That Dope.” There were a lot of great moments during the set, but one of the best was when every person in attendance sang “Here’s one for the douchebags” at the top of their lungs, and then Push told us how he’s young, rich, and tasteless. And we agreed.

That’s the thing about Pusha T. There’s something so magnetic and so inspiring about everything surrounding him—from his music to the way he dresses to the little backwards lean he does while he raps. Most of his set just was him walking in circles on stage, pointing at us through a snarl, and even though he looked and seemed and probably was pissed as fuck, all I wanted to do was just sit in the same room as him and be in his presence. Pusha T knows this about Pusha T, and that’s what makes Pusha T so incredible. This dude came from nothing. This dude sold drugs for years. This dude invented cocaine rap. This dude’s former manager is in jail for 30-plus years for drug trafficking. And now this dude is standing on the main stage of Pitchfork Music Festival, before thousands of fans with their hands up, each one aggressively rapping every lyric to every song he’s written. He sums up his life succinctly in the first verse from “No Regrets,” one of the deep cuts from My Name Is My Name:

Nowadays I sell hope, what you rather I sell dope?
What I sell is a lifestyle, naked bitches on sailboats
Foreign cars on a freight train for every nigga they railroad
Rent-a-cars we road run, money longer than train smoke

After the set, I heard some grumblings about the performance. People complained about the wait. People complained that he didn’t do even one Clipse verse. People complained that Kanye didn’t show up (kidding, that was just me). Pusha T even had the audacity to take some digs at the beloved Lil B, ending his set by rapping the fuck out of “Move That Dope,” yelling “BASED GOD MY DICK,” dropping the microphone, and walking the fuck off stage like he invented the genre of rap music. You wanted to hate him for it. You wanted to be pissed. But you couldn’t. Because the fact is that your complaints don’t matter. Your friend’s complaints don’t matter. Your opinions of Pusha T don’t matter. My opinions of Pusha T don’t matter. None of this matters, because this is motherfucking Pusha T. This. Is. Motherfucking. Pusha. T.

Eric Sundermann wishes Pusha T was playing again today but, like, whatever. He's on Twitter — @ericsundy

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