Back when he was still one-half of Clipse, Pusha-T dazzled listeners of the Virginia duo’s mixtape series We Got It 4 Cheap by annihilating popular beats of the day. The project’s sole criticism was that the production was already so good, it could carry anyone. DAYTONA, copiloted by hip-hop production genius Kanye West, upends that conceit, with contemporary boom-bap built from luscious soul samples that would swallow a lesser MC. With Pusha at the absolute top of his game, DAYTONA is somehow more than the sum of its parts, a fact the rapper acknowledges proudly on “The Games We Play”: “To all of my young n****s/I am your Ghost and your Rae/This is my Purple Tape.”
More Music News from New Music Times
-
Editor’s Pick: The Anarchist Ice Cream Club Is an Inventive Alternative Rock Masterpiece
-
New Music Spotlight: Giselle Niemand’s “SMH” Is Packed with Pop Perfection
-
Shimmering 80s Influences Meet Modern Pop on Pilote’s “Perseverance”
-
Fresh Pick Friday: Discover the Retro-Modern Charm of “Obsolete”
-
Inside Colibrí: The Album That Connects Heritage, Spirituality and Contemporary Jazz