When I say right, it just has to be well thought out. I feel like I'm on a pretty good roll, and it can't be me trying to force what might be perceived to be next.
When I think back to my influences and icons musically, they were my icons musically because, for example, I would look at Rakim and be like man he said the freshest things and then I look at him and he would have on the pair of Nikes that I wanted and I'm like, "ma' please!" It was everything. Now, I sort of feel like if you are fresh then your music doesn't have to be that good because people are so keyed into the fashion. That's just the times I guess.
I just feel like I explain myself more, I'm trying to be more conscious about it, simply. Just enlightening my fans and letting them know to lock into me because I'm speaking real with them, more than anything.
I try to mix the fashion with the music and what's going on at the time...at the time [when my uniform was black on black] I was putting together an album, my album was my name at the time; very minimal, very stripped down, very everything but it still had and have to have some level of pop.
I don't want people to see what I've been doing at Play Cloths for nine years and built from a streetwear independence standpoint through Japanese streetwear - I don't want that to be shifted into something else.
Doing something else and just adding whatever Pusha T nuances on it, now you're doing something cheaper. You started one place and took it to its heights, and now you're regressing. I don't think I should be exploring that right now.
Adidas has invested so much into this collab and into me. It'd be easy for any brand, with some of the spearheads that they have in their roster, just to say, "We got this guy and that guy over there, the Pusha T thing can just be - eh." But they haven't spared any expense, they've let their creativity run wild, and it really makes me feel that I'm a part of a family. It makes me feel like they enjoy watching the growth of Pusha T.
Fashion is just really standing up in the forefront and it's being even mentioned at the same level as the music. I sort of feel like that's where it gets a little sketchy.
I try to make Play Cloths really representative of me and my designers they look at my evolution as an artist and in fashion and they [zero] in to different details. I come into the office some days and they're like, 'What are those?" [I say,] "[These] are Philip Lim...[I'll] have on Philip Lim sweats and they go and put their spin on it.
I feel like Hip Hop culture has always been about [fashion]...it started in the street so it has always been a thing of the streets to be first.
I watch people all day long on Instagram, I take part in it too. It's like if you get the piece first, you have to immediately be like "BAH!" stunting.
No one wants to hear me over some smooth, regular beat, or just into the times. I try to do records sometimes that have a different bounce - maybe it's a Southern bounce or something. And people shoot me all day long.
I've never been - I don't think I'm, like, a great A&R, by any means. I don't even know production lingo, in all honesty.
