Two guys and that was the best cocaine pun they could come up with for a title?
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[7.14]
Iain Mew: The repeated guitar wail cuts, but Pusha cuts deeper, taking things right from birth through to now, any nostalgia caught up on razors, punches and names carved into flesh. With his verses and Kendrick’s opening gambit (a flat and creepy “You wanna see a dead body?” as the track stops appropriately dead) there’s no way for the track to stay at that level, but it’s difficult to be too disappointed.
[7]
Jonathan Bradley: From the corpse in his first line, death suffuses Kendrick’s verse, creeping uninvited into recollections of holidays and family. It’s a vivid and domestic portrayal of drug abuse, told in the space between science (quantum physics, the Sega Genesis) and knotty wordplay (the numerical juggling that culminates in “when there’s tension in the air, nines come with extensions.”) Rap is Lamar’s vengeance for the Reagan era — “go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick” — and he urges America to reap what it sowed with the scriptural authority of a Pusha T. And, yes, Pusha: Kendrick’s verse is less flashy than that on “Control,” and even though it might be better, I’m not about to suggest anyone’s been murdered on his own shit here. For a rapper seven years past his acme, Terence Thornton sure is on here, digging up even more evil by pantomiming emotion in his usually impassive tone. The guitar sparks like the flame held to a crack pipe.
[9]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Cuba Gooding Jr has a scene in Boyz N the Hood where his character Tre violently reacts to a gathering of everyday trials, except it happens in his girlfriend’s house and he limits himself to the air around him. It’s a cathartic moment, equal amounts silly, fearless and emotional. Push reminisces on the scene — and much of a reckless youth as a drug dealer — with a sneer: “throwing punches in his room!/if he cries, he cries!” Somewhere in the ether, a KRS-One sample guffaws, making for a shared mockery of the soft. Kendrick recalls vowing to get his dad out of the dope game and almost makes nobility sound utterly vengeful. Pusha’s memories cut deeper though, his verse an insanely visual ride alongside an glamorous hellion — all Doughboy and no Tre.
[8]
David Turner: The talent of the two is a given. And this talent isn’t being wasted. Real shit is talked about here. But Pusha already has “Numbers on the Board,” so the cocaine raps and the perfect beat quota of the year has been met. Sorry, Mr. King of New York.
[4]
Brad Shoup: “I need foolishness in my hip-hop,” said Malice back in ’09. It needed to be said, not because his old manager was getting sent up, but because he and Pusha made their bones on dealer tales so well rendered, people thought maybe they could be true? Malice is No Malice now, walking a line between contrition and cashing in. Pusha T’s trying to be more than GOOD Music’s goal-line back. To that end, he’s amped his perfectionist tendencies: enunciating with deliberation and doubling down on the crack game mastery. Kendrick’s playing with house money, so he sticks to the user’s perspective, splitting the difference between history and revision. Oh, and he tosses off “taco meat land on his gold” — some Coles-level detail — while turning into a goon. The track stings in a fake-psych manner; it sounds like RZA film music. Basically, it’s effective; it’s what happens when a top-notch classicist runs into a grandmaster.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Maybe this is because they are touring together (amazing poster, btw) or maybe because it features a reference to Diamonds from Sierra Leone, or maybe because my hip-hop references are limited, but this sounds like Kanye — but more difficult, less willing to push the pop, less willing to ingratiate. The weird sexual references are still the same though.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Pusha opens his mouth and the familiar rasp emerges, coldly dropping references to drug muses, Pyrex, and blood on your diamonds while he harmonizes with scratches and a high-pitched single note guitar provides the hook. Lamar provides no release. Symphonies of death are “instrumentals from yo momma’s Xmas party.” His pop is in the game too. Weed never did this. This is the real art of storytellin’, where every verse is a brick.
[8]