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Oh, I'm up at 6:00 A.M. every morning because I have a lot to do. Plenty. I work out probably at, like, 8:00. I gotta eat at 6:00 so, therefore, I can workout at 8:00.
I feel like, as far as streetwear goes, man, Play Cloths sits at a top-tier of quality, and your idea of luxury should not stop where you feel like you're at the obvious.
I don't even know how to think about running out of things to talk about. Certain things are inescapable to me. I'm connected by the hip with so many things in the streets.
Fashion is just really standing up in the forefront and it's being even mentioned at the same level as the music. I sort of feel like that's where it gets a little sketchy.
My mama didn't see it comin, my daddy was there. What's my excuse? Cartoons were the root. Started with Yosemite Sam With the gun in the palm of the hand, What couldn't I demand?
Pharrell has definitely influenced my style in regards to streetwear. Simply because we're from that era that Nigo and A Bathing Ape started. That's where it all started at for us.
This is my time, this is my hour, This is my pain, this is my name, this is my power. If it's my reign, then it's my shower, This pole position...I made a lane 'cause they blocked ours.
I don't ever want anyone to hear my music and look at it as just gratuitous violence, or hustling and money-getting - I try to tell the perspective of the woman, the man, the mind, why.
Playing a room, it's a real dictator-type situation - you can really move the crowd the way you want to. In a festival, there's a sea of people, and it's harder to lock in on any one group.
I can't force the direction that it's going to go without actually taking the time to make sure it's a great, great quality product. Whether that's for apparel, or whatever the case may be.
I don't know if that comes in a number, I don't know if that comes in a plaque, I don't know what it is. If I can keep me and the crew around me happy, stable, and out of jail, then we good.
The fundamentals of hip-hop still play an important role, cause it's about those similes, those metaphors, those parallels. And to some people it's just about, "Man, I'm really relating to the lifestyle."
The passion for sneakers has been there since day one, but I never held onto them. I never shrunkwrap them. It's always been about getting it, buying it, wearing it, showing it and moving on to the next one.
I just feel like I explain myself more, I'm trying to be more conscious about it, simply. Just enlightening my fans and letting them know to lock into me because I'm speaking real with them, more than anything.
I don't want people to see what I've been doing at Play Cloths for nine years and built from a streetwear independence standpoint through Japanese streetwear - I don't want that to be shifted into something else.
The Re-Up Gang mixtapes are going down in history, man. I still listen to them in my car, and the 'Hell Hath No Fury' album. I tell people all the time that I'll never make another album like that one again. Never!
My music is airy; it's spacious. It requires you to be able to rap and articulate your message over it. That's what the beat demands of you. Not a lot of people try to rap over my beats because it's a bit of a task.
'Darkest Before Dawn,' the short film, is basically the film of a man who faces the darkness when his back is against the wall and just about how miracles come in all forms, and even in your darkest times, it comes.
People don't understand how long it really takes to find beats. Sometimes they're not all the way there, but it's elements in them I love. Then I get to take them to get chopped up. Ye got to cook over a few of them.
My vision for G.O.O.D. Music is just carrying on with the tradition of putting out high-quality music, high-quality art. G.O.O.D. Music is entrenched in the culture of hip-hop. It's entrenched in the culture, period.
No one wants to hear me over some smooth, regular beat, or just into the times. I try to do records sometimes that have a different bounce - maybe it's a Southern bounce or something. And people shoot me all day long.
When we were growing up, I got kicked out of Timbaland's house every day. He was the DJ for my brother's rap group in junior high school. So I was 7, and while Tim's DJ'ing and my brother's rapping, I'd be upstairs dancing.
I feel like my lyrics are just dark and scathing. I feel like the lyrics on 'Darkest Before Dawn' are uncompromised hip-hop and really speaking to my core fan base. Basically what's been known in my discography the entire time.
Coming up, you [got new] sneakers and you had to run outside to make sure everyone saw. It was on display. That's just part of Hip Hop culture, part of the competitive spirit of Hip Hop. This is not new, I don't believe it's new.
Doing something else and just adding whatever Pusha T nuances on it, now you're doing something cheaper. You started one place and took it to its heights, and now you're regressing. I don't think I should be exploring that right now.
I've got my travelling, my packing, my after-show activities all down to a science. I used to not work out on tour; now I take a trainer with me. I do things to make sure that I can give the crowd my all, because that's what I'm all about.
Personally I really like to see when a woman can put together a super fresh everyday look that is not over done or anything. It just makes me feel like she's really something and she knows she doesn't have to have on the super tight skirt.
G.O.O.D. Music is on top because G.O.O.D. Music is the culture. When you think of, you know, just every aspect from music, influence, fashion, art level. If it's not G.O.O.D Music, then it's somebody who was influenced heavily by G.O.O.D. Music.
When you make albums like I do, and it's based off fanfare and based off touring - I make these albums, and I get on the road. It's not really a radio-driven thing. I get on the road, and I see my fans, and I touch each and every last one of them.
I talk specifically to the lifestyle and those who can relate to it. And I feel like, where the creativity comes in, is where you draw the parallels that everybody can relate to. That's where it's creative for me. I feel like it works best that way.
That competition grew through high school and you step outside more and it grew through college. Then you had regional style speak volumes through college. As you get older, and begin to travel and see more, that was the progression of style for me.
I just look at capitalizing on everything that I feel like G.O.O.D. Music brings to the music industry, our following, and the culture. First of all, we have incredible artists. It's definitely about getting those albums out in a very manicured fashion.
I've been going to Europe for some time on the festival circuit, and once you get in that element and see others reacting to it, it's easier to understand. You get trapped in the wave. The beats are driving and super-aggressive - like, so hard. I was curious.
I was in Paris, when Kanye [West] was doing his line and I stopped like, "Woah why are you doing womenswear and why do you think you can do it?" He was like, "Why? You don't know what you like to see women in?" I was like, "Yea but still women are so intricate."
By now, you should know what you're getting with Pusha T. I've been in this game since 2002, and my name says it all. You know I'm only moved by a certain style of rap. Not that many other styles move me. You have to really be a rapper's rapper for me to like it.
Virginia Beach is just such a melting pot for so many different things, and they just have so many influences. I would always say that the area definitely influences Play Cloths. The area itself just has so many influences, whether it be fashion, music, everything.
I think adidas really understands that it's cool to be in business with the right people. It really feels like a bunch of creative minds rather than some rap guys stamping their names on a sneaker. We're arguing over shoes, ideas, and everything - it's like a tug of war.
My mood board says that there should be a G.O.O.D. Music festival. Why not? Like, we haven't - I don't think - and I think all of the G.O.O.D. Music artists and affiliates are doing so many different things that we never get to Voltron up. So that would be a thing of mine.
I had a really successful 2013, '14, '15. Touring, just doing my thing. Super - I mean, can't complain about nothing. And my road manager got killed. And it ruined everything. Now, I tell people - I don't know if this is a word. But I tell people that that re-sensitized me.
Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows - all the windows - and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car.
To me it's just the knock, man. It's the knock and the groove of the beat. When I start a song, it's the first thought. It's the first thought and the first cadence, because that's the most natural. You know what I'm saying? I feel like people can feel when something is natural.
My style is a mix and match of everything. Like I said, It's Play Cloths, it's Saint Laurent, and I know I sort of won when everything can be understated, it can be three different brands, and you can't really see what it is and then you just ask, "Well damn that looks good, what is that?"
I try to mix the fashion with the music and what's going on at the time...at the time [when my uniform was black on black] I was putting together an album, my album was my name at the time; very minimal, very stripped down, very everything but it still had and have to have some level of pop.
My hip-hop fans are a little spoiled - they want a particular level of lyricism and energy that I'm known for. When they don't get that, it takes a little time for them to open up to it. But electronic fans are as free as the music. On social media, they were so excited and loud; they're in awe.
A good villain exudes charisma and power. He has principles, though; that just gives him a level of dimension. It makes him seem to be a bit unpredictable, because he's usually deemed as some type of evil, ruthless person, and then he shows you his principles, and you don't know what to think of it.
More than anything, Play Cloths has taken risks in regards to the pieces of clothing that we're even creating. We started out as straight T-shirts. It was just T-shirts and a couple cool things. Now, it's leisure pants, it's all types of clothing. We're evolving even with fashion trends on a super high level.
As a writer, you're always trying to say the best thing. You're always thinking about what's the best thing to say, and what's the hardest way to say it, and what's the best line? Sometimes the best line is the simplest line. Sometimes the best line is the line that evokes more feeling than actual wordsmithing.
I never understood why movies don't have to be as responsible, or the responsibility stops with Rated R. I feel like music, you gotta - you put the sticker on it, you make the clean version, then you're explaining yourself, and then you have to do charities to offset what you just said. No one else has to do this!
I've always had some level of having to be independent outside of music because the music wasn't a smooth ride. We lost a lot in the mix: Everybody that I came in the music game with - friends I brought in with me - are all doing 10-34 years in jail. That's why if you want to get the real, you gotta get it from me.
I felt like when I got with Kanye, and we discussed me being on G.O.O.D. Music, he just really took me to a place in regards to music that I love and music that I had made previously. We had a clear understanding of what I wanted to make, and he just seemed like he was an advocate for hardcore, uncompromising hip-hop.