The Clipse were far from the first to rap about cocaine but the way that they took the niche genre and innovated it shifted the game for the better. Push is still rapping about cocaine nearly 20 years later but he’s faced a backlash from people who’ve claimed that he’s not really about that life while others have criticized the romanticized and largely exaggerated depiction of his kingpin stature.
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In a recent interview with Anthony “Geezy” Gonzalaz, former manager to the Clipse, there might be some validity behind the criticism towards their authenticity. Push, specifically, was able to take moments of their real-life conversations and turn it into glorified bars of gold. In fact, Geezy said roughly 95% of the things No Malice and King Push rapped about surrounded a life that he did.
“They never had to ask me about no idea off of what they have seen,” Gonzalez said. “But, I remember a couple of times it was a rap back in the day and me and him were sitting there talking and I said to him, I made a statement, for every car I got add nine O’s. It was me just talking in general when I said that and he looked at me but he ain’t say nothing. Then I heard him say it in a rhyme, ‘For every car I got add nine O’s.’ When I heard it, I was like, man I said that to him. He was good when it came to that type of stuff.”
This only adds more fuel to the claims made by Drake and No Malice that Pusha T isn’t actually living the stuff that he raps about. We’ll see if Push ends up responding to this clip.
