1/8/2023 - friendship ended with pusha

Mood: Disappointed.

Bruh I'm glad I have some wide-ranging tastes in rap right now, otherwise I'd be heartbroken by alotta shit. I'm glad I don't really idolize anyone anymore either. I guess other than Kendrick, but I've been trying to be a bit more normal about that (I mentioned it in my Mr. Morale entry).

I mean there's a LOT I could say about Kanye but I mean... come on y'all. I let him go when he was doing all that MAGA shit so ion know why people are acting all betrayed about him hating Jews. Or any of his other comments.

It's time to let him go...

I'm, as usual, only irritated by nonblack folks who can't get enough of sharing his dumbass clips around. I know black people have been talking about it, right? It's just the same shit when these dudes like Hasan start talking about these fringe, black right-wing groups that NO NIGGAS HAVE EVER HEARD OF. I don't feel like elaborating today, so the rest of y'all are just gonna have to interpret that.

I also been a lil disappointed in Pusha lately. Not because he did anything bad, just because I've been paying a little more attention to how he presents himself lately. For one thing, I recently read this interview he did where he talks about having a "difference of opinion" with Kanye. I don't know why the interviewer was being such a bitch about it, just kinda going "oh have you guys talked lately" and only mentioning the InfoWars thing at the end. Anyway, Pusha both said that he "ain't with" how Kanye's been acting but also said its just them having a "difference of opinion" again. To be fair, this is how a lot of rappers are, but I mean this ain't like your weird uncle giving unsolicited political commentary at Thanksgiving, it's a dude who said he loves Hitler.

Moving on from Ye, it's not just this one thing that's bothering me. I have known for a while that Pusha raps about coke a lot - it's hard to forget, really. I am good at ignoring this whole "fuckin hoes" and any dope dealer shit so I tend to filter it out subconsciously [1]. Earlier today though, I actually FINALLY noticed what the cover of Daytona is - it's Whitney Houston's bathroom. You know the photo. Suddenly a bunch of things clicked in my head.

There were a few articles here and there about Whitney's relatives finding the album cover to be in poor taste... Not a lot of stuff icks me like this; I'm not above finding someone's invocation of Kurt Cobain's suicide to be meaningful. But taking someone's tragedy and twisting it for your own benefit like this? It's honestly pretty sick. It's one of the same reasons I began to DESPISE Sewerslvt after they put a dead child on one of their album covers. Not to mention the goddamn Dahmer Netflix series.

If you're unfamiliar with Push, part of you might think to defend him because maybe there was a deeper reason for using that photo. Well, let me stop you right there: giving context makes this even more disgusting.

In his music, Push LOVES to remind you that he was a dope dealer and boy, is he proud of it. Sometimes he does get into the life and hardships of being a dope dealer, but most of his shit is just him bragging about how much he made pushin. There's no introspection about his old gig or any sympathy for the addict in his music. That's what makes this album cover so dark. It feels like he sees this image as his handiwork, and he's proudly showing that off to everyone.

"A nigga got rich from what you snort through a straw."

I have sympathy for the drug dealer in some cases, especially knowing that this is many people's only option to make money. Like I said, I'm not above most of this stuff in rap, especially since most people acknowledge that they're enabling addicts. However I have NO sympathy for the guy who leaves the lifestyle only to CONTINUE exploiting users through bragging and using photos showcasing real people's addiction. I have relatives who were using just last year and are only now beginning to recover, and I had to watch them go through the horrible stages of withdrawal. They were constantly having breakdowns and had to go the ER multiple times because they genuinely thought they were dying from the physical toll it took on them.

Basically, this shit ain't cool. Not even a little bit. It's hard to have much respect for Pusha at this point, especially when the dude seems completely ignorant to how shitty this messaging is.

And yes, I know Kanye is the one who pushed for this to be the cover, but Pusha coulda just said no! He speaks his mind all the time, so he clearly liked the idea of this being the album cover.

Damn, this ended up being more about Kanye than I intended. Damn!

Oh well. At least we still got JID. Now that I think about it, I still haven't listened to The Forever Story...

[1] Let the record show that I am not acting like I'm ABOVE this kind of lyrical content. I'm not complaining about it or anything. I'm just from the suburbs and I don't like to talk about women that way. It don't mean much to me to hear this stuff in a song.

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