About the Sauconys, there are a lot of sneakers that are not as marketed as heavily as like Nike but those silhouettes are still fresh. I'll always go to a Saucony.
Pusha TThe 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."
Pusha TMy 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?"
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TThe energy in working with my team at Adidas is really good for me. Being this is the third installment, I feel like everybody is comfortable with everybody.
Pusha TAs a writer, you have a huge ego. You think that every line means something to everybody the same way it means to you. And that's not true.
Pusha TNo 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.
Pusha TI watch people all day long on Instagram, I take part in it too. It's like if you get the piece first, you have to immediately be like "BAH!" stunting.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TFor me, I was born in the Bronx, and I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia at a very young age. I had the luxury of going back to New York, visiting my grandmother who would spoil me endlessly, and I could buy whatever was the hot kicks in the summertime of 1990. Being able to shop and then going back to Virginia Beach, where they weren't as fast in regards to fashion, I had that luxury.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TWhen I think back to my influences and icons musically, they were my icons musically because, for example, I would look at Rakim and be like man he said the freshest things and then I look at him and he would have on the pair of Nikes that I wanted and I'm like, "ma' please!" It was everything. Now, I sort of feel like if you are fresh then your music doesn't have to be that good because people are so keyed into the fashion. That's just the times I guess.
Pusha TI've never been - I don't think I'm, like, a great A&R, by any means. I don't even know production lingo, in all honesty.
Pusha TComing 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.
Pusha TI don't think I'm a collector. I think every kid from where I'm from had a terrible passion for having to have fresh kicks.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TThe 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.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TI find myself trying to explain more, and explain the perspective of my mentality, or the mentality I'm trying to convey.
Pusha TI didn't come in as a writer that found producers, I came in under producers. So I've always respected the actual production process and producers in general.
Pusha TThat 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.
Pusha TWhen I start a song, it's the first thought. It's the first thought and the first cadence, because that's the most natural.
Pusha TI was going through a time where I was like man I wanted all of my clothes to be totally understated and I would do pop color with hats from a line called Ale et Ange out of New york City. They created all these hats and I just thought they were super fresh and the only way that I could really get them across...I was just like, 'Let me make everything mute and just put on the hat.'
Pusha THip-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.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TAdidas has invested so much into this collab and into me. It'd be easy for any brand, with some of the spearheads that they have in their roster, just to say, "We got this guy and that guy over there, the Pusha T thing can just be - eh." But they haven't spared any expense, they've let their creativity run wild, and it really makes me feel that I'm a part of a family. It makes me feel like they enjoy watching the growth of Pusha T.
Pusha TI feel like Hip Hop culture has always been about [fashion]...it started in the street so it has always been a thing of the streets to be first.
Pusha TSome athletes are super fashionable and not good. It's like c'mon man focus on your craft, be who you're supposed to be and then go put on the clothes.
Pusha TI don't think anything I've done with Adidas has been shifted. It's been part of the Pusha T brand, has for sure been organic and natural.
Pusha TI 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.
Pusha TFashion 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.
Pusha TPersonally 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.
Pusha TTo 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.
Pusha TSonically, musicians always go above and beyond in our efforts to disrupt radio. It's always about being different. Our radio is never conventional anyway.
Pusha TThe thing that I realize about fashion now, fashion and music, now versus back then is that you had to have fresh records and be fresh.
Pusha TFor me, being a rap fan and the nostalgia of me being a kid, rappers and guys on the street told me everything to wear. That was it. I didn't necessarily read too many fashion books. Then it got competitive in junior high school. It was moreso about, "You don't got these." Everybody could be fresh, but you don't got these.
Pusha T