-It's nice to see you again, bud.
-Yeah. Good to be back.
-Yeah, two nights in a row for you, bud.
-For sure. -You've been on the show before.
By the way, do I call you Pusha? Do I call you Pusha T?
-Push is good. -Pusha? Okay, good.
-Push. Push. -Push?
-Yeah, Push is good. -Thank you.
-You my man. -Appreciate it. Thanks.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-What do you feel like calling me, Jimmy or Jim?
-Jim. -Yeah.
Okay, good. You can call me Jim.
Alright, Push.
[ Laughter ]
Uh, I, uh... What is, uh...
Pusha T, what does it -- is there a meaning behind it?
-Man, you know what?
Pharrell actually named me Pusha.
-Pharrell did? -Yeah, yeah.
You know, we used to be in the studio a lot,
and I would never stay in there and work with him.
I would always leave out of the studio and run around
and do things in the street and so on and so forth,
and then I'd come back.
He'd be like, "Damn, Pusha! Damn!
Why don't you just, you know, just chill with me, man?
Like, chill with me. Put everything into the music.
Forget all that other stuff outside."
-Wow. -Yeah.
-So what was -- did you have a name before that,
or just your own name?
-You know, I did.
Like, before Pusha, right, it was Terrar.
And it was because I was born on Friday the 13th
and yy mother used to call me Terrence the terror.
Yeah. -So, you were a terror?
-Yeah, yeah. I was pretty bad.
[ Laughter ] I was pretty bad.
-You were bad, yeah? Yuo were pretty bad, yeah, yeah.
But also, before we get into the new album --
First of all, congrats. It's out now.
We can say it's out now. -Thank you.
-"It's Almost Dry." -Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
That's fresh, too.
-I want to congratulate you because you're also a new dad.
Buddy, that's what I'm talking about!
-Thank you. -What it's all about, man.
-Thank you. -Great.
-Has becoming a dad changed you at all?
As a person, as an artist?
-You know what, it's made me a lot more focused as an artist
'cause I feel like now my time is, like, so precious to me.
'cause I'm always trying to get back to my son.
-Yeah. -So when I go into the studio,
it's laser focus, gotta finish,
gotta, like, get in, get out.
'cause I'm trying to get back home.
-Yeah. So, it's interesting.
Yeah, you're a Pusha, but a different Pusha now.
-Yeah, for sure. -Now you're like,
"Let's push this 'cause I gotta go.
Yeah, I gotta go feed the --" yeah, exactly.
That's awesome. I love that.
I gotta say, I love the title.
"It's Almost Dry."
Can you explain what the title means to everyone?
-Yeah, "It's Almost Dry,"
it just speaks to trying to create a masterpiece.
And as an artist, everybody's always asking you, like,
"Man, when you gonna be done? When's it coming?"
You know, so on and so forth.
And you always gotta tell them, like, it's almost ready.
It's almost dry. -Yeah, it's almost ready.
Then we can show the painting to everybody, yeah.
-Right, for sure.
-The entire album is produced by Pharrell and Kanye.
-Yeah. Half and half. It's 12 songs.
Six by Ye, six by Pharrell.
-They must have different producing styles, I can imagine.
-Very much so. Very much so.
-What is Ye like?
-Well, Ye is just a Pusha T rap fanatic.
So, he just likes all of my raps
and he just wants me to just rap all day long
and then he just wants to take them from me and edit them
and do what he wants to do with it, right?
Pharrell is like more of a composer.
He wants to make sure that every verse, every hook,
every cadence, every flow, everything --
he likes to call them "sticky moments."
He wants to make sure that everything is sticky
and just stays with you the whole time
throughout the whole song.
-Is that right? -Yeah.
It's way more tedious with Pharrell.
It's way tougher with him.
Way tougher with him. -That's so good.
Wow. I mean, you have great
collaborations on this, by the way.
-Yeah. -Kid Cudi.
-Yes. -You've got Don Toliver.
-Yep. -You have Lil Uzi Vert.
-Yes. -I love him.
Jay-Z. -Yes.
[ Crowd cheers ] Yeah.
-Is it difficult to get...
How hard is it to get Jay-Z to do a song?
-Man, it's not that tough.
[ Laughter ]
You know, I usually, I'll just --
I'll do my parts of a song.
If I hear a song, hear a beat,
and I just do everything I can do to this record,
but it still needs something else,
I'll just email him.
Like, I'll email him and I'll send him the record
and he'll hit me back like,
"Man, what the hell you want me to say to this?"
-Really? -And then...
You know, then he just goes through this process,
like every couple days, he'll be like,
"Yeah, I got about six lines for you."
-Wow!
-And then, you know, it just takes a while.
You know, he goes through it, and eventually,
his engineer will call me.
Guru will be like, "Hey, what's your email address?"
-Yeah. -And then I get it back.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-On Instagram, I saw you posted this
and I was like, "Oh, could this be something?"
-Oh, yeah.
-This is you and Dr. Dre. -Yeah, yeah.
-And, yeah. -Yeah.
[ Applause ]
-Are you working with Dr. Dre on something?
-We actually were just at Nobu.
His table was across from me. We were eating.
And I happened to see him and I just,
I had to take a picture -- it's Dr. Dre.
-[ Laughs ] So you just went like,
"Hey, I gotta get a picture," just for fun?
-Yeah, he invited me to his house, though.
I'mma go. I want to go see his house.
-He invited you to the house? -Yeah, for sure.
-Oh, really? -Yeah, I promise.
-Oh, man. No, I believe it.
I'm just jealous.
Yeah, I've known him -- -No, I'm going to see it.
-No, really? -Yeah.
-Tell him what's up. Tell him that --
-Now you want to see what his house like.
-Tell him to email me. -Yeah, I will.
[ Laughter ] -I appreciate it.
Congratulations on the album, buddy.
-Thank you. -And always come back.
Come back for the next release and the next hit.
-Yes, sir. -We appreciate it.
Pusha T, everybody.
"It's Almost Dry" is available now.