Terar, Ye, and Skateboard P have tried their hand, and with not much competition in this quarter, this trio is the closest thing to the Holy Trinity when it comes to mainstream rap in the twenty-twenties.
“It’s Almost Dry” , the latest effort from Pusha T after the polarizing “Daytona” is a Side A / Side B presentation where Kanye West and The Neptunes over-see production in an attempt to bring out the best of “King Push”, trading off some of the best sounds they have in the tuck until the record has run it’s matrix. “Brambleton” opens things up as a spiritual successor to the Clipse smash “Virginia”, with rumbling bass providing the base for a pensive and reflective Push leading into the anthemic “Let The Smoker’s Shine the Coupes”. The tempo slows down as the first soul sample gives way and Push takes listener’s further back in time on “Dreamin’ of The Past” which features a disjointed few bars from the tracks DJ, in the enigmatic Kanye West.
This issue cites some of the first and greatest missteps on “It’s Almost Dry” : the features. Kanye delivers insight on his personal life on both “Dreamin’ Of The Past” and “Rock N Roll”, which is to be expected of the emcee, but the problem is in how short his bars clock in. Let alone for his once-upon-a-time protege in Kid Cudi, who touted his feature on “Rock N Roll” with such pride and enthusiasm, only to have it be a let down at best, and completely forgettable and unnecessary at it’s worst.
Still both “Rock N Roll” and “Dreamin’ of The Past” contain infectious instrumentals and enough quotables to back Pusha’s boasts of overlooking your “top 3” because he’s “top me”.
“Neck And Wrist” functions as a banger, Jay sounds comfortable over it, but Pharrell pushes the auto-tune a little too hard for the bridge, which is confusing when his natural vocals sounded perfect on the hook. Arguably both Kanye produced “Diet Coke” and “Hear Me Clearly” are the better singles. Kanye’s vintage sound just sounds more welcome than Pharrell’s need to push Push into the conversation of the current “sound”.
Take for example the god awful “Scrape It Off”. Why get Don Tolliver for the record? I know these guys could have afforded Travi$ Scott. And Uzi Vert using “Toy Story” punchlines? I thought this guy’s fifteen minutes was up a long time ago. Amazing how “Darkest Before Dawn” had Beans and two albums later we get Uzi. Definitely not Philly’s finest moment. “Open Air” is completely forgettable, despite the veiled disses that tempt the rewind button; but Pharrell completely redeems himself with “Call My Bluff”, the most imaginative, and arguably, the best record on the album. The slick cadence Push uses sounds unlike anything else on “Its Almost Dry”, where Push constantly sounds like he’s trying to keep up with Brooklyn’s Finest by emulating their styles so much so that it would be annoying, if this pattern of homage paying was not repeated through Push’s previous efforts.
The synthesizer work sounds almost like the noticeably absent Chad Hugo was in the studio for this session with Skateboard P behind the boards to bring that old Star Trak magic to the twenty twenties, gelling with the Kanye records where Kanye stuck to what he does best (flipping old soul samples) making “Call My Bluff” the biggest highlight off an album filled with enjoyable material.
With all that vintage, “Its Almost Dry” wouldn’t have been complete without a Clipse reunion. Over the most haunting of organ keys, the Clipse reunite on “I Pray For You” with Malice closing things out with a ferocity missing from his latest collaboration with Push and Ye on the Grammy award winning “Jesus Is King” LP.
It sounded so good to hear Malice say the term “sniff” ! It would be great if this record encourages Malice to relapse to his old Re-Up ways, but even if he doesn’t, this was more fitting than anything that the trio did for a Grammy a few years ago. Labyrinth could have been left out in favor of The-Dream who sounded so good on “My Name Is My Name” and “Darkest Before Dawn”. Again, the placements here were so strange, where was Push’s usual cohorts? Where was Ab-Liva? Jay’s “Free Mason” bars were masterfully manipulated into a hook for “Hear Me Clearly”, but that song came off Rick Ross’ 2010 effort “Teflon Don”, where was Ross?
Interviews to promote the record stated that Pharrell was trying to push Push into household-name status with this record, and in that respect “It’s Almost Dry” is a failure. But in these same conversations, Push stated Kanye just wanted Push to spit bars over his records that would create Joker-smiles on the faces of rap purists, so in that regard, “It’s Almost Dry” is a success.
Four albums in, Pusha is still curating coke lines into verses that are enough to slightly settle the demons of his past, but though he may be your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper, Push is still “underground”, since he is unable to get from under the shadows of those that came before him, making it tough to judge this audio work of art as anything but an imitation! An imitation of the best years of The Neptunes and Kanye West’s early millennium careers. An imitation of Brooklyn’s Finest bars back when The Commission was possibility before the tragic death of it’s head honcho in 1997. An imitation of Atlanta style radio hits that Pharrell has attempted to pigeon hole Push into for his version of success, not Pusha’s.
If “It’s Almost Dry” is to be looked at as a painting (as Pusha presses listeners to do), then it is a homage piece to a story that has been told a million times, Pusha may be one of the best to tell this story but when surrounded by artists who already have a noticeable pastiche, Pusha’s paints still feel like plain play d’oh : ready to mold, but without an original cast of it’s own.
Score: 3.5/5
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