The full interview with Pusha T and "Sneeze" magazine was recently published, and Pusha T let go some outtakes from the same interview. He discusses the difference between working with Kanye and Pharrell, as well as writing his verse for "I'm So Appalled", and his solo career without his brother, Malice. Check out some choice excerpts:
On the differences of working with Kanye and Pharrell:
Working with P it’s like, by the time you get to the studio the track is there. And an idea is there and we might go back and forth to try and find the hook. With Kanye when I get with him it’s more of a blank canvas, starting from scratch. He has the idea beat-wise, he’ll give me that I’ll write to that, the part that I like lay it down. Then he takes it from me. And then he builds this whole roller-coaster ride around it. It’s more of a surprise because like I said you don’t know what he’s thinking. You don’t know what he hears, he hears shit you don’t hear, I know I’m going to run into a problem of demo-itis, where as like I’m married and in love with what I’ve heard, and he comes back and changes it.
On his "I'm So Appalled" verse:
So what people don’t know is that what Kanye did during that album is literally, I walked into the studio and I had the pick of 17 records and he was like do what you want to do to any of these, do what you like. First thing I heard was “Runaway,” I was like oh I love that, and I wrote that 5 times. He thought it was a big record and he was really adamant about that and he was really particular about my verse like “C’mon you got to get that right.” “I’m So Appalled,” I was like man listen this is one of them ones he was like listen you love it, go, just go rap. Everybody had that shot, and I even did “Lost In The World.” I stopped hanging out, we would get up play ball every morning, go eat breakfast, I might go eat breakfast but I would let them go play ball and I would go to the studio and try to write a cadence or something special for “Lost In The World” because I love that record so much. I didn’t get on that one, but that was the type of freedom you had to try and get on the records.
Read more of his thoughts here