{"id":2448138,"date":"2019-08-29T07:59:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T13:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=877915"},"modified":"2019-08-29T07:59:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T13:59:06","slug":"how-pusha-t-secured-the-first-lauryn-hill-feature-in-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/how-pusha-t-secured-the-first-lauryn-hill-feature-in-years\/","title":{"rendered":"How Pusha T Secured the First Lauryn Hill Feature in Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/pusha-t-lauryn-hill.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>1511 days, 36,264 hours, 2,175,840 minutes, and 130,550,400 seconds passed from the last time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/lauryn-hill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ms. Lauryn Hill<\/a> released recorded music, until the release of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/pusha-t-lauryn-hill-kanye-coming-home-877917\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Coming Home<\/a>\u201d on Wednesday. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/pusha-t\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pusha T<\/a> still seems in disbelief that the elusive Hill said \u201cyes\u201d to giving him a feature. Sonically, \u201cComing Home\u201d is the antithesis of the sinister and nihilistic coke raps that the <em>Daytona<\/em> rapper has spent the past two decades turning into high art. Built on a cacophony of bright whistles and a pitched-up vocal sample, the Kanye West, Mike Dean, and Charlie Heat-produced song is by far the most uplifting song in his decade-spanning discography. Hearing Hill sing, \u201cWhen love is real, you can do anything\u201d after Pusha T spent the bulk of 2018 becoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/hip-hop\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hip-hop\" data-tag=\"hip-hop\">hip-hop<\/a>\u2019s greatest anti-hero seems almost too outlandish to be true.<\/p>\n<p>But from the minute Pusha heard the instrumental, he knew \u201cComing Home\u201d deserved something he\u2019s not used to giving. \u201cI remember having the beat and was like, \u2018Man, I think this is bigger than what Pusha T really does. What he\u2019s known to do,&#8217;\u201d he says over the phone. \u201cI felt like the track itself had a feel good music. It had that feeling to it. I was like \u2018This needs to have a bit of a message to it.\u2019\u201d Over three verses, Pusha T maps the effects of mass incarceration on the black community while striving to uplift the people still behind bars. The song\u2019s release coincides with the announcement of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thirdstrikecampaign.com\/cominghome\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Third Strike Coming Home Campaign<\/a>,\u201d an initiative \u201cto free people serving life in prison today under yesterday\u2019s outdated 3 Strikes Drug Law,\u201d according to a press release. In partnership with Brittany K. Barnett\u2019s Buried Alive Project and MiAngel Cody\u2019s The Decarceration Collective, Pusha T is looking to help prisoners serving life sentences for federal drug crimes.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9bx_r7H7eF8?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>How long were you sitting on this beat for and tinkering with this idea?<br \/><\/strong>I might\u2019ve had the beat for a year and a half. Then getting Ms. Hill to do it, you know everybody has their process. It was something I had that was special, and then we had Ms. Hill get on it. Even then, we never really attached it to a project. We just want to get it right. We just want to get the song right. With that being the case, it may have been longer than a year and a half.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you manage to secure a Lauryn Hill feature in 2019?<br \/><\/strong>It was actually just a request. We don\u2019t have any people in common, really. I just made the request, and she expressed that she liked what I do musically. Basically, she was like, \u201cLet me take a crack at it.\u201d By the time she said, \u201cLet me take a crack at it,\u201d I was already floored. I was just like, \u201cOk? You\u2019re working on it.\u201d Then she came back with something like \u201cHey, this is what I\u2019m working on, but I don\u2019t know if I really like these two parts.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat?! Are you actually going through your process with me? What do you mean?\u201d I\u2019m just fully taken aback. She was actually going through the process. I can tell you of at least nine different renditions. I have so many different takes and pieces, things that she just really honed in on the song.<\/p>\n<p>Just her doing it, we never got to even attach it to a project, because it was always just a work in progress. She was like \u201cOh, you know what, I\u2019m going on tour for such and such, or I\u2019m going overseas and I\u2019ll probably get back to it.\u201d I was like, \u201cCool.\u201d Then she\u2019d get back to it and it\u2019d be like a surprise call, a surprise email, a surprise text of an mp3. She took charge and took over executing the track.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the genesis of the \u201cThird Strike Coming Home Campaign\u201d and tying it to the song?<br \/><\/strong>That happened because we always felt like the song was super strong. There\u2019s a line in the record that when I was writing it, it really made it make all the sense to me. It was \u201cOr Tony Lewis out in D.C. \/ The 80\u2019s kingpins, gotta free them \/ All those faces we ain\u2019t believe in \/ If no child\u2019s left, then how can we leave them?\u201d Those lines meant a lot to me in regards to the song. With those lines in the track, it referenced Tony Lewis Sr., a father, a grandfather who\u2019d been in the prison system for 30 years now for a drug charge. He actually was locked into the conspiracy of the Rayful Edmonds case.<\/p>\n<p>I happened just by chance and by music I met his son, who is Tony Lewis Jr. who does a lot of heavy, heavy community work in the D.C. area. He expressed to me that he was a fan of my music, and from there we sort of established this relationship. With that relationship moving forward and moving on, I was recruited by the My Brother\u2019s Keeper program with President Obama. I want to believe that was around \u201815. So matter of fact this record was more than two years old.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xq3eNq43C-0?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>When I got recruited by President Obama, I would go to The White House. We would talk about things that were super important to us as he was coming out of office. Prison reform was a thing that I was always speaking to. When I couldn\u2019t come to some of the events, they let Tony Lewis Jr. come and speak. He would speak from so many angles and aspects, from re-entry to how we could get the laws changed. He became a part of My Brother\u2019s Keeper program with me. We were active up until Obama got out of office. From that point, the campaign it sort of quieted down.<\/p>\n<p>So I got with my publicist, and I was like \u2018I heard about the Buried Alive project and I heard about the Incarceration Collective. Can we reach out to these two women and see if there is something we can do to kickstart something or help the situation? At this point, I didn\u2019t know another way to get back into that mix. We found Brittany Barnett and MiAngel Cody, and we told them our interests. I even said \u201cI have a record that we can attach to it. Just however I can help.\u201d Then they were like, \u201cWe should fundraise.\u201d So I was like \u201cOk cool, let me donate 25 grand to what we\u2019re doing, the \u2018Third Strike Coming Home&#8217;\u201d campaign and of course, they came up with the name. The biggest thing was hiring more lawyers to take on more of the cases. In 90 days, they want freedom for 17 prisoners who are set to die in prison. Those two lawyers themselves have freed 40 men and women who basically survived over 800 years in prison. I was like \u201cMan, we need more lawyers. They say we need more lawyers. We need more lawyers.\u201d I was like, man, we should try to do a campaign to definitely raise this money and get those lawyers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How has it been working with Barnett and Cody on this?<br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s been fairly simple. Everybody has put their money where their mouth is, honestly. It started from a conversation and then it was like \u201cOk, cool. Here\u2019s the donation. What else do we need to do?\u201d Let\u2019s connect it and reach out to all of our sources and see what resources we can pull in. From there it\u2019s just been simple honestly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the impetus for the charcuteries skit in the middle of \u201cSociopath?\u201d<br \/><\/strong>We basically record everything when we\u2019re in the studio. That was one of those amazing quirky Kanye West moments. I\u2019ve spoken to the fact that a lot of times when I\u2019m rapping, and when I\u2019m rapping on his production I\u2019ll say things that he won\u2019t necessarily know the angle from which I\u2019m coming from or understand what I\u2019m talking about. And this one particular time he just asked. He\u2019s just like \u201cHey man, what\u2019s charcuteries?\u201d We happened to catch it on tape. He was like \u201cOh man, you know what? That has to go in the song. They have to know what happens in the studio.\u201d He edited it and just put it right in the song. That\u2019s why it sounds a little airy. It sounds like speakerphone audio, because we took it directly from the sound of the actual taping of the sessions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On Twitter, you were really candid about how much the <em>Yandhi<\/em> and G.O.O.D Music leaks \u201cruin\u201d the plans you guys have in place. As the President of G.O.O.D. how do you move forward from that?<br \/><\/strong>That\u2019s something that comes along with the fanatic-ness of what we built as a brand in G.O.O.D. Music. People are super eager. Sometimes it\u2019s eager fans, sometimes it\u2019s people who just are unethical. I don\u2019t know exactly know what it is, but I do know that ultimately G.O.O.D. Music doesn\u2019t play by the rules. We never conform to anything, and the only people that that honestly caters to is our fanbase and just the industry as a whole. Everything that we do is sort of outside of the box. I feel like we bring excitement and we bring a new energy with any new project we\u2019re dropping.<\/p>\n<p>So when things like leaks happen, I feel like the only person that\u2019s honestly getting cheated is the fan. These songs go through iterations. There\u2019s so many different iterations, from lyricism to production. Ye could wake up tomorrow and say \u2018Oh man, those need harder drums.\u2019 Even some of the songs that you heard, those are just references without drums. You don\u2019t even get the full scope of the song. Being that \u201cComing Home\u201d and \u201cSociopath\u201d came out within those leaks as well, I would never do or cheat a record that I\u2019m working on with Ms. Hill. I wouldn\u2019t treat it as like a throwout. I wouldn\u2019t do that. Even Kash Doll, she took her time to come in and execute what I needed done. I wanted to treat that record. I wanted to give it the proper rollout, and due to those leaks, those are two of the records that didn\u2019t get that. It\u2019s unfortunate. I think at the end of the day the music is awesome and the music is good. I feel like everybody\u2019s going to enjoy it. I feel like we\u2019re at a place where the talent pool is beyond measure. We\u2019ll cook up again, and we\u2019ll roll it out properly next time, and it\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n<p><em>To learn more about the \u201cThird Strike Coming Home Campaign\u201d and how you can help go to their website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thirdstrikecampaign.com\/cominghome\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/pusha-t-lauryn-hill-coming-home-interview-877915\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1511 days, 36,264 hours, 2,175,840 minutes, and 130,550,400 seconds passed from the last time Ms. Lauryn Hill released recorded music, until the release of \u201cComing Home\u201d on Wednesday. Pusha T still seems in disbelief that the elusive Hill said \u201cyes\u201d to giving him a feature. Sonically, \u201cComing Home\u201d is the antithesis of the sinister and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 00:50:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}