Pusha T- “What Dreams Are Made Of”
From his “album” Fear of God II: Let Us Pray

I love Pusha T, and I love this song; but is there any other rapper who has developed himself and changed his style less over the course of his career?* He’s like the AC/DC of rap. By now his calling card is doing nothing differently, being a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none. He even seems to highlight this entropy with lines about, say, Motorola pagers, to let you know that he doesn’t just deal drugs…he’s been dealing drugs for a long time. (Also, you’re sticking with the Jewish jokes, fam? You better hope you don’t get 10% more famous. You’ll have someone to answer to.)

One of the more fascinating details about his dopeboy dope-elder-statesman persona, however, is his love for Ric Flair, which definitely nails him as a generation above most people on the radio. At the height of my coke-rap interest, I listened to an hour of a Peter Rosenberg-Clipse interview in which Pusha revealed an obsession with professional wrestling’s Nature Boy. Like, Big Boi’s love for Kate Bush levels of fandom. Despite prosaic moves, Flair was one of Push’s heroes growing up because of his outspoken personality and displays of wealth, so it makes sense that Clipse would devote two or three lines to him on every album.

Pusha T, a master of the lost art of intro-sampling—again, he’s getting old—has now bookended a song with an amazing Flair speech. Listening to the empty, affected bravado of Flair, a man who defined himself by longevity and status, not risk-taking and technical skill, I realized what I should have the whole time: He is Pusha T.

*- Too Short probably.