In an excerpt from his new memoir Hurricanes excerpted by The Fader, Rick Ross explains how he played a part in one of the most earth-shaking pairings in modern-day hip-hop. Apparently, before Pusha T signed to Kanye West’s GOOD Music — first as an artist, then as President — Ross pushed Kanye to consider the partnership after one of Kanye’s infamous Hawaii recording sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Check it out below:
Every day would start at 10:00 a.m. with breakfast at Kanye’s crib in Diamond Head. Sometimes we’d get there before he did. Kanye would still be at the studio from the night before. He had two full-time chefs there who were cooking up French toast with flambéed banana while everybody got to talking about what we’d worked on the night before and what we were fitting to do at the studio today. These were Knights of the Round Table discussions.
It was during one of those breakfasts that Kanye and I got to talking about Pusha T. Pusha was one half of the Virginia rap duo Clipse, who had just dropped their third album Till the Casket Drops. Kanye had been featured on the album on a song called “Kinda Like a Big Deal” but he never actually worked on the record. He’d recorded his verse on there for a T.I. song called “On Top of the World,” but somehow it had ended up getting placed on the Clipse song instead.
So Kanye didn’t know Pusha T. But I did and I gave Ye my opinion on him. Somebody like Pusha T could be a big asset in this environment and I recommended Kanye see what his label situation was too. I got them on the phone and the rest is history. I had already left Hawaii by the time Pusha got there but he got a few placements on the album and Kanye ended up signing him to G.O.O.D. Music.
More recently, Rick Ross tried to play a role in healing the longstanding rift between Pusha and rival Lil Wayne by placing them both on his Port Of Miami 2 track “Maybach Music VI,” but decided at the last moment to remove Pusha’s verse after it was deemed too inflammatory. Hurricanes is out now via Hanover Square Press. Port Of Miami 2 is out now via Epic Records. Get it here.
