Pusha T has some thoughts on what he thinks is wrong with rap these days, and he’s calling it out.
The acclaimed, Grammy-winning rapper sat down for a comprehensive interview with The Wall Street Journal. During the conversation, he offered thoughts on hip-hop’s foundation and how things are different in 2026.
“It started off with a lot more individuality,” Pusha T said. “Everybody wanted to be different. They wanted to be great, and they wanted to set themselves apart. You can’t look like me, you can’t do what I do.”
So what is he seeing in the rap game today? “Now people try to do different versions of what’s hot,” Pusha T explained. “Everyone can just be good and be the same. I feel like people don’t mind being like other people these days.”
Pusha T feels that hip-hop is severely lacking “individuality” these days
Pusha’s perspective is interesting, because he’s not necessarily criticizing a specific element of hip-hop, but rather the idea of uniformity. And his comments are very much aligned with some things he said in a 2022 Interview Magazine conversation.
“My race isn’t to be the world’s biggest rapper,” Pusha T told Tremaine Emory, the creative director of Supreme. “My race is to show how viable street hip-hop is and how long it can last outside of Jay-Z. When I look at the Rolling Stones, I never call them old; I just call them rock stars. We put time and age limits on the youngest genre of music. It’s the most terrible thing in the world.”
Emory then shared a personal take on how modern rap artists are treated. “We put rappers in a box—this amount of lifespan, this amount of albums, this amount of tours,” he said. “There’s only a few guys like you who are still prospering. I don’t mean just financially, but prospering as far as your music matters to people.”
“It matters to motherf**kers that’s in their forties, and it matters to kids,” Emory continued. “It’s interesting to think about you having to push through the expiration date that our own culture puts on ourselves.”
Pusha T then chimed in: “As long as my mind is sharp and I’m still living and competing mentally, I feel like this never has to end. Some of my favorite rappers, guys that I’ve put their posters on my wall, I seen them in their heyday and I see them today. And I be like, ‘F**k man, I hate how you look.’”
Photo by Brianna Bryson/Getty Images for Coachella
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