Legends return, but do they excite us?
[Video]
[8.00]
Al Varela: This song is pure seething contempt from all angles. Pusha T and Malice are so brutal and unflinching in their verses, embracing their nasty side and giving the “this is culturally inappropriate” watermark more credence as villains of the rap game. Pharrell’s work on this song is masterful. The thrumming bass and echoing guitar picks paired with the industrial stomp in the percussion is nerve-wracking and leaves you feeling uneasy. Made even better when his ghostly refrain lures you to the dark side and brings you to the Kendrick verse, one I’m ready to call one of the best features he’s ever had. Relentless and spiteful as his diss tracks towards Drake, ripping the industry apart as he reasserts that therapy has led him down the path of healing… and a path of dominance. I could hear this song soundtracking the arrival of the villains, fire burning behind them as the shadows loom closer and closer. Is the rap game truly saved, or is this just the final reckoning?
[10]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Relative to when Pusha T and Kendrick first worked together a decade ago, this is a wash. Age has further honed Pusha T’s pen — where in his early solo work he seemed to be trying mainly to come up with increasingly elaborate cocaine metaphors, here he is more furiously intense, a sneering villain enacting revenge upon yet another unworthy foe. For Kendrick, though, the fruits of victory have instead weakened his resolve; he’s still a reliable pick for 6-8 undeniable lines per verse (the ginger root-ginseng structure here is pristine) but nothing quite as thrilling as hearing “you want to see a dead body” for the first time, his waffling about vibes and kaleidoscopes feeling slightly like filler. Even the additional elements cancel each other out — Malice’s verse is perhaps the strongest on the whole song (The Revenant reference alone is worth its price) but someone needs to tell Pharrell that his hooks are no longer needed in the Clipse enterprise.
[8]
Andrew Karpan: Deciding to hire Lenny Kravitz to play a few frigid licks on this must be a flex, though you wouldn’t be able to tell from Pusha’s bars, which are as world-wearily articulate and workmanlike as anything else he’s rapped on for the past decade. Even Kendrick’s blockbuster appearance feels curiously demure, in addition to not being legally actionable. Instead, he sounds practically regal; each verse sounds like it was shouted while smoking a thick cigar.
[7]
Tim de Reuse: A claustrophobic beat that revolves around the apocalyptic post-rock twang of a heavily reverbed guitar, all tension and no release, Pusha T’s verses staccato and uncomfortable. When you’re sharing a bill with Kendrick Lamar, though, you’ve gotta bring better lines than rhyming “dried up like a cuticle” against “it’s beautiful.”
[7]
Alfred Soto: More on-the-nose than on-the-money, Pusha bitches about reality TV (it’s “mud wrestlin’”), remarks on how jealousies turn into obsessions, and reminds us that he buys collections, not watches. Kendrick as usual mutters to himself, a resident of a world barely recognizable to himself. Pharrell’s production — a treated guitar twang — has a welcome sparseness. If every song on Let God Sort Em Out sounded like this, the album would be a stone bore.
[7]
Katherine St. Asaph: A scroll of proclamations that strike an uneven balance between ominous (“I will close your heaven for the hell of it”), petty (“they said I couldn’t reach Gen Z, you fucking dickheads”), and corny as hell (“the question marks block your blessings”). (Genius says that last one is a Super Mario Bros. reference; amid the incoming deluge of didactic “lyrics explanation” slop I’m kinda gonna miss these bizarre, extremely human reaches.)
[6]
TA Inskeep: It’s kind of stupid how great Pharrell’s production fits Pusha T and Malice’s rapping on their comeback album Let God Sort Em Out. You know what wasn’t on my 2025 music bingo card? A great Clipse album. The thing is, Push doesn’t make weak records, and being re-teamed with his brother Malice has clearly sparked even more greatness from both of ’em. And just listen to how good Kendrick Lamar sounds spitting in their league: “Let’s be clear, hip hop died again / Half my profits may go to Rakim,” fuck YES.
[10]
Ian Mathers: It’s one thing when I found myself muttering parts of the hook under my breath doing the dishes, but when I found the Pharrell “and then you realize that the Devil is talking to you” part looping in my head I was forced to admit they had me. I’d say “Not Like Us” et al has inspired rap’s greatest haters, but I am not at all sure they needed any encouragement beyond being back together. (If the song needed one, it would get a bonus point for the “Grindin'” cover at the end of the video.)
[10]
Nortey Dowuona: Misery’s fueling your regression, jealousy’s turned to obsession. Pusha has spent the longest part of his career receding from a daring formalist with a slinky sneer to a preserved-in-amber weapon in the stanbase wars between the elder millennials/younger Gen X and the younger millennials/older Gen Z, and has spent very little time making good songs. His voice can comfortably slither between contempt, cruelty and nastiness — no color other than black, grey, and mostly white. Blank, heavy colors that lack both nuance and delicacy, the pieces Pusha used to earn his keep with in both the Clipse and G.O.O.D. Music. So of course he can turn his attention to making songs such as “Numbers on the Board” and “Nosestalgia” and “If You Know You Know” and “Santeria,” since they stick to the block colors that now make up his songs. But here he is wasting that now blunt blade on a worthless target — Freekey Zekey? The 3rd guy on that Juelz Santana song? — and underlining the growing impotence within his snide remarks. It’s a despair-driven tirade, one born of watching the artform you care for dissolve and crumble underneath you despite your best efforts. Most wish all the words he wasted on weak targets would instead go to his mentorship and ability to bring the best out of them. It don’t take much to put two and two, your lucky streak is now losing you. No Malice walked away from this predatory music industry for much the same reason he sat quietly and seethed while his younger brother recounted the irrelevant office parking lot arguments that have begun to overshadow his career. He has little to gain from re-engaging a dormant, lazy audience who did not know he has been in his best element for so long. He can conjure up the old spirits and aging fury since he understands his role — the gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder — but it still feels like he’s holding back, as if he is only stepping back over the threshold to lift his ill-gotten gains one more time, then letting them slip since the dried blood still lays upon it. What grace and respect he earned walking away from the fryer is ebbing as he steps back toward it, wearing old and poorly fitting clothes, doing a full blitz press run fueled by nosestalgia and trouble on our minds as truly unscrupulous figures dismember the very government that allowed the Thornton brothers to become proud capitalists. A despair-driven tirade, one born of watching the artform that gave you a place to grieve crumble underneath you despite your best efforts.
And it ain’t the Lord’s voice and then you realize that the devil is talking to you. When’s the last time that Pharrell made a great beat, not merely a good one? 2017? 2018? 2019 maybe? He’s retained his lovely smile and commercial appeal while his craft turns to tic, his quirky, chirpy drum patterns and lush, bloody-minded chords becoming dry and dusty and flan-shaded. He’s sabotaged Jack Harlow, M.I.A., Travis Scott and ASAP Rocky and especially Drake, who lurks as a punishment for gleeful commercial and European adoption of the genre. A despair-driven tirade, born of self-imposed defeat in the face of the very artform that gave you a platform despite your best efforts.
Therapy showed me how to open up, it also showed me I don’t give a fuck. About what? About being known as “the guy who dissed Drake”, a mediocre pop rapper who ruined rap with his pathetic attempts to ape Phonte’s genuine tenderness and Joe Budden’s embittered passivity? About being “the West Coast savior”, despite not working with the great Drakeo the Ruler, 03 Greedo, Mozzy, Dām-Funk, XL Middleton, Ryan Porter or Kamasi Washington AT LENGTH? Being the next big rap celebrity while Dody6 flails in agony at the death of his child? About possibly reintegrating Kodak and XXXTentacion and Playboi Carti and Diddy, noted racist lefty Gunplay and Kanye West (and the homie Taytay)? About maybe just giving half your profits to Rakim just off the strength, or not kicking Tanna Leone off your label and sticking Baby Keem in a storage box for 3 years with no news on his return? About how apparently offending the fake Alphacat with gentrifier bars is the dumbest thing to hold up a verse for? About watching the party die, possibly by your hand? It’s a despair driven tirade, one born of the delusions of elder millennials and young Gen X refusing to accept they must now leave the stage for good. Song’s still pretty good tho. That’s the ginger root.
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