Key Takeaways:
- Kendrick Lamar nearly appeared on two tracks from Clipse’s upcoming album, ‘Let God Sort Em Out.’
- Pusha T revealed that label concerns over optics led him to exit Def Jam Recordings to keep Lamar’s feature on “Chains & Whips.”
- The final tracklist includes only one Lamar collaboration, leaving fans speculating about what could’ve come from a second.
On Monday (June 30), Clipse officially revealed the tracklist for their highly anticipated comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out. The 13-song LP will arrive with contributions from Pharrell Williams, Nas, John Legend, Tyler, The Creator and, perhaps most notably, Kendrick Lamar. As it turns out, fans almost got two features from the Compton lyricist, if only he hadn’t been “super busy.”
Sitting down with Jerry Lorenzo on Tuesday’s (July 1) episode of Spotify’s “Countdown To,” Pusha T explained how their first Lamar collaboration, "Chains & Whips," came together, and how a second effort with the Compton lyricist slipped away. “It was a situation where the traffic of people just coming in and out of the studio, and it happened to be a person from Kendrick’s camp who was in the studio,” the Virginia native explained.
“We let his folks hear the album, and he called [Lamar] and was like, ‘Listen, you need to get on this,’” Pusha T recalled. “And mind you, at this particular time, he was just super busy. Man, [I] sent them songs over, [and] he just called back laughing…He was like, ‘Yo, I wanna do two.’”
Even getting just one Lamar feature proved so important to Pusha T that he willingly paid seven figures to exit his Def Jam Recordings deal. According to him, the label “didn’t like the optics” of two of Drake’s biggest rivals teaming up, especially with the Canadian star currently suing their parent company, Universal Music Group.
“[Def Jam] pinpointed a line where the phrase ‘Trump card’ was used. It’s so stupid,” Pusha T told The New York Times’ “Popcast” in June. Interestingly, when Clipse and Pharrell gave fans an early preview of Let God Sort Em Out that same month, the line was noticeably missing. For now, fans will have to wait until the album drops on July 11 to find out what else — if anything — about Lamar’s verse had the label so on edge.