The album the rap industry has been waiting for. Period. Between Pusha T’s ability to rap on nearly any beat and the genius of a Kanye West production, we get the much anticipated DAYTONA.
Since Pusha T dropped the supposed part one to this album with King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude in 2015, rap fans have been patiently waiting for the conclusion. While three years is frustrating for fans and risky for artists, Pusha T clearly took his time carefully developing his verses and hooks to make sure he would drop an instant classic.
“If You Know You Know”, the first song off the album shows this the most. Talking about his past career path, he peppers his verses with words and phrases about the drug game. He uses a slow buildup in his entrance to drop at the first chorus. From there, he doesn’t look back, using references to Big Meech, Al Roker, Oprah, and the Golden State Warriors to tell a story and creating a song that will definitely be staying high on the charts for a solid period of time. Moving to a piano beat, Pusha T talks heavily of his drug dealing past in “The Games We Play”.
The quality of production for the album is seen primarily in the transitions between tracks, most notably between “Come Back Baby” and “Santeria”. If you weren’t paying attention, the switch is so fluid that it sounds like a change in beat and not in song. Impressively enough, Pusha T beautifully combines his verses with that of the melodic voice of 070 Shake (who was also featured on Kanye’s recent album Ye). Paired with an aggressive hi-hat, “Santeria” is a solid pick for most underrated on the album.
Most importantly, what can’t be missed is Pusha T’s final track on the album, “Infrared”. This was, as many at this point know, the start of the beginning of Drake and Pusha T’s recent beef. Much of the song feels like one giant diss to the everything going on in today’s culture. However, Pusha T’s aims his lyrical gun straight at Drake with the verse:
“How could you ever right these wrongs? When you don’t even write your own songs, but us all play along, we all know what n****s for real been waitin’ on.”
Overall:
Clearly, this album was an extremely well-produced piece. That is no question. Pusha T took his time and dropped a solid set of tracks. Every verse is solid and every beat plays perfectly. With that said, I give DAYTONA:
9.2
This album is fantastic and might even rank up there in my top 20 rap albums, however, 7 songs constitute an EP, not an album. That is the only reason it loses that small little bit. DAYTONA will be a classic and is an early consideration for Best Rap Album of 2018.
-Heff
Colossus Music 
Solid review. I’d only point out that certainly at 20 minutes this should be considered an EP but the amount of tracks alone doesn’t put it in that category. If you look 70s and 80s and even earlier you’ll see quite a lot of albums that are 7 songs (or even less) that are very much full length albums. Funk and Jazz are both notorious for this with the 8+ minute songs so a Miles Davis record might only have 4 song breaks but is still a 45 minute album. Same with Funkadelic who would have 6 or 7 songs on a 50+ minute album.
All that said you’re definitely right about it being a small helping of music that for me at least just made me want more. Great write-up!
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