About the Sauconys, there are a lot of sneakers that are not as marketed as heavily as like Nike but those silhouettes are still fresh. I'll always go to a Saucony.
I can't say that music ever made me do anything.
I don't ever want anyone to hear my music and look at it as just gratuitous violence, or hustling and money-getting - I try to tell the perspective of the woman, the man, the mind, why.
Fashion right now, people are so...everything is driven by the aesthetic.
Of course fashion is definitely playing a part.
My mama didn't see it comin, my daddy was there. What's my excuse? Cartoons were the root. Started with Yosemite Sam With the gun in the palm of the hand, What couldn't I demand?
Coming up, you [got new] sneakers and you had to run outside to make sure everyone saw. It was on display. That's just part of Hip Hop culture, part of the competitive spirit of Hip Hop. This is not new, I don't believe it's new.
Rappers on their sophomores...actin' like they boss lords. Fame's such a funny thing for sure when niggas start believing all those encores.
I don't know if that comes in a number, I don't know if that comes in a plaque, I don't know what it is. If I can keep me and the crew around me happy, stable, and out of jail, then we good.
To me it's just the knock, man. It's the knock and the groove of the beat. When I start a song, it's the first thought. It's the first thought and the first cadence, because that's the most natural. You know what I'm saying? I feel like people can feel when something is natural.
Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows - all the windows - and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car.
Women's style is so hard for me. I just know what I think looks good.
The passion for sneakers has been there since day one, but I never held onto them. I never shrunkwrap them. It's always been about getting it, buying it, wearing it, showing it and moving on to the next one.
I was in Paris, when Kanye [West] was doing his line and I stopped like, "Woah why are you doing womenswear and why do you think you can do it?" He was like, "Why? You don't know what you like to see women in?" I was like, "Yea but still women are so intricate."
For me, being a rap fan and the nostalgia of me being a kid, rappers and guys on the street told me everything to wear. That was it. I didn't necessarily read too many fashion books. Then it got competitive in junior high school. It was moreso about, "You don't got these." Everybody could be fresh, but you don't got these.
For me, I was born in the Bronx, and I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia at a very young age. I had the luxury of going back to New York, visiting my grandmother who would spoil me endlessly, and I could buy whatever was the hot kicks in the summertime of 1990. Being able to shop and then going back to Virginia Beach, where they weren't as fast in regards to fashion, I had that luxury.
I don't think anything I've done with Adidas has been shifted. It's been part of the Pusha T brand, has for sure been organic and natural.
The thing that I realize about fashion now, fashion and music, now versus back then is that you had to have fresh records and be fresh.
Some athletes are super fashionable and not good. It's like c'mon man focus on your craft, be who you're supposed to be and then go put on the clothes.
I was going through a time where I was like man I wanted all of my clothes to be totally understated and I would do pop color with hats from a line called Ale et Ange out of New york City. They created all these hats and I just thought they were super fresh and the only way that I could really get them across...I was just like, 'Let me make everything mute and just put on the hat.'
My style is a mix and match of everything. Like I said, It's Play Cloths, it's Saint Laurent, and I know I sort of won when everything can be understated, it can be three different brands, and you can't really see what it is and then you just ask, "Well damn that looks good, what is that?"
Today I feel like it's about people just looking fresh and their records aren't fresh.
The energy in working with my team at Adidas is really good for me. Being this is the third installment, I feel like everybody is comfortable with everybody.
I didn't come in as a writer that found producers, I came in under producers. So I've always respected the actual production process and producers in general.
Sonically, musicians always go above and beyond in our efforts to disrupt radio. It's always about being different. Our radio is never conventional anyway.
