How Pusha T and Travis Scott went from collaborators to enemies
Everything was rosy between Pusha T and Travis Scott in December 2012. The pair collaborated on ‘Blocka’, the lead single from Pusha’s Wrath of Caine mixtape, which dropped in January 2013. However, recent years have caused one half of Clipse to have a change of heart about the Houston rapper.
The Young Chop-produced ‘Blocka’ was one of the early tastes of Push’s music on Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music, having signed a deal with the label in 2010. In the chorus of ‘Blocka’, Travis raps, “I got diamonds on my blocka/ Serve it to my flocka/ Yeah, that’s my flocka/ To my flocka/ Pray to Lord on my shotta/ She be proper/ Yeah, that’s my flocka.”
Travis signed to Kanye as an in-house producer in 2012, putting him in the same circle as Pusha. The Virginia rapper has been around Travis enough times to judge his character, and his moves in recent years have provided Push with enough fuel to realise he detests him. The reason for this comes down to his neutrality.
His direct issues with Travis are related to the song ‘Meltdown’ on his 2023 album, Utopia. In Drake’s verse on the record, he raps, “Melt down the chains that I bought from your boss/ Give a fuck about all of that heritage shit.” The disrespectful lyrics, which influenced the song’s title, reference jewellery Drizzy bought from Pharrell’s auction site.
Pusha was far from impressed with the diss aimed at him and his longtime collaborator, Pharrell, who even wrote and produced the song ‘Looove’ on the same album. “The true context of that is we were in Paris, literally working, and he was calling to play P his new album,” he told GQ. “He came to [Pharrell’s] studio. He interrupted a session.
“He sees me and [Malice] there. He’s like, ‘Oh, man, everybody’s here,’ he’s smiling, laughing, jumping around, doing his fucking monkey dance. We weren’t into the music, but he wanted to play it, wanted to film [us and Pharrell listening to it]. And then a week later you hear ‘Meltdown’, which he didn’t play. He played the song, but not [Drake’s verse].”
Push doesn’t “hold Travis to any standard” because of how often he stays neutral. “He’s done this a lot,” he explained. “He has no picks. He’ll do this with anybody. He did it with ‘Sicko Mode’,” referencing Drake dissing Kanye on his song.
Additionally, Kendrick Lamar dissed Drake on Future and Metro Boomin’s ‘Like That’, but that didn’t stop Travis from hyping up the song at a festival. “He was on the [Rolling Loud] stage like, ‘Play that, play that!’” he said. “He don’t have no picks, no loyalty to nobody. He’ll jump around whatever he feels is hot or cling onto whatever he feels is hot … At the end of the day, I don’t play how y’all play. To me, that really was just like… he’s a whore.”
He added, “Somebody brought ‘Meltdown’ to my house. To P’s house, actually… I mean, I don’t give a fuck. P don’t give a damn. It’s the principle of what I’m saying. That filthy quality that they have about themselves, that lack of loyalty. Travis really has that. He’s proven. I just named three people that he does that type of behaviour with. I’m just not one of them.”
His actions led to Pusha dissing him on Clipse’s song ‘So Be It‘, produced by Pharrell, in which he targets Travis over his breakup with Kylie Jenner. He raps, “You cried in front of me, you died in front of me/ Calabasas took your bitch and your pride in front of me/ Heard Utopia had moved right up the street/ And her lip gloss was poppin’, she ain’t need you to eat.”
He continues to threaten Travis, “The ‘net gon’ call it the way that they see it/ But I got the video, I can share and A.E. it/ They wouldn’t believe it, but I can’t unsee it/ Lucky I ain’t TMZ it/ So be it, so be it.” Only time will tell if Travis has a worthy enough response.