The reason why Diddy intimidated Pusha T: “That’s straight frustration”
Pusha T has, in the past, been extremely complimentary about Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, which, considering all the coverage of the latter’s trial for a series of sex-related felonies, is not a great look.
But the fact remains that Diddy’s influence on the hip-hop scene was absolutely massive for several decades, credited, as he is, with launching the careers of superstars like the Notorious BIG, Mary J Blige, and Usher, while positively shaping the careers of plenty of others, Pusha T included.
King Push’s second album, Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, featured an illustrious list of producers, including Kanye West, J Cole, Timbaland, and Q-Tip, among others. But the one who really stood out and impressed the rapper the most was Diddy, who worked on the album’s intro and the tracks ‘Crutches, Crosses, Caskets’ and ‘Keep Dealing.’
In a 2015 segment of NPR’s Microphone Check, host Ali Shaheed Muhammad asked which of the Darkest Before Dawn’s producers surprised him the most “in terms of what they delivered” and “the chemistry in the recording process”, and Push’s loyalties were clear. “Puff surprised me the most,” he said. He noted how he had had his fair share of buying into losses since he started his career in 1997, and recalled hearing rumours about how Diddy wasn’t “the producer for real”. However, all that changed when he Push found him in his corner, highlighting, “The way I want to hear my records weren’t going to be what they were without him in the studio with me. I ain’t had nobody push me like him.”
Push explained that Diddy wasn’t easily impressed in the studio, which could be intimidating. “Because I pride myself on verses, and then you got a guy like him,” he said, “He comes in and he says, ‘If I know what you about to say, then that’s the wrong bar, bro’. You know?”
Diddy’s drill sergeant approach forced Push to really consider his lines, always trying to avoid the predictable. In going through this process with Diddy, he realised that, maybe, this is why the Notorious BIG’s rapping was so innovative. Push said, “I would sit back, coming up listening to those bars, those songs that Big did, and wonder why he could talk about a robbery, T’yanna, his daughter, and, you know, a sex scene with some girl at All-Star Weekend in a four-bar thing. And I was like, ‘Man, is that why?’…I would have questions like, ‘Damn. I wonder… why he just veer off?’”
Working this way was tough, and Push even expressed his exasperation with it in a line in the track ‘Crutches, Crosses, Caskets’, admitting, “The ‘I don’t like back and forth with Puff about rap shit?’ That bar. That’s straight frustration”. But, ultimately, despite almost losing it and trying to stay ahead of Diddy’s curveballs, Push appreciated the experience when it was all over.