Pusha T Covers XXL Magazine’s Winter 2022 Issue

Pusha T is claiming what he feels is rightfully his: the best rap of album of the year. As XXL magazine’s winter issue cover star, Push opens up about creating his magnum opus, It’s Almost Dry, a contender for Best Rap Album at the 2023 Grammy Awards. The celebrated lyricist wants to take home the big win to help elevate “articulate, lyric-driven, taste-level hip-hop.” In his cover story interview, the 20-year rap veteran discusses everything, including the greatness in beats and rhymes on his album, the Grammys, marriage, fatherhood, his past beef with Drake, no longer speaking to Kanye West, plans for his next project and more.

On Having the Best Rap Album of the Year: “I’m very focused on what it is that I do. Coming in saying this is the best album of the year, no. This is the best rap album of the year because I know what I did. I nailed that. All the best album of the year talk and all that, I don’t know. That ain’t what’s pure to me. What’s pure to me is rap. In this rap space, give me mine.”

On His Desire to Win a Grammy for It’s Almost Dry: “I’m trying to win that Grammy, but I’m trying to walk. I want you to see it. People gotta see it. They need to see it. The next generation gotta see it. The streets gotta see it. They gotta understand it. This is all built from y’all. That’s the most important part to me.”

On His Beef With Drake: “Every time I hear a subliminal in one of his songs, it just lets me know how deep it hurt him. Because it’s been four years now. And we still talking about it. He is. I don’t. I’m cool. But every time it’s a subliminal, I’m like, Yes. It burns. It still burns. It lets me know. I love it.”

On Being a Dad: “My son is the best thing ever. He’s the best verse I’ve ever written. It’s just a discovery every day of him and him discovering himself. I just love everything about that kid. I feel like I totally understand him. It’s a different, different kind of bond. It’s priceless.”

On No Longer Speaking to Kanye West: “He’s not speaking to me now. If you ain’t with it, you ain’t down. And I ain’t with it. I’m not budging on that. I’m not with it. I heard about this new stuff [on InfoWars]. I don’t know. It’s something that just sort of tells me he’s not well, at the same time. I will say that. It’s going to places where it’s no way to move around it.”

On Plans for His Next Album: “Definitely working on another solo album. Just gathering a whole bunch of ideas. I never really stopped working. I sort of made a three-year plan and I’m trying to follow it. We get past [the Grammys], it’s back-to-back-to-back.”

Read the complete cover story interview on the XXL website here. Buy the winter 2022 issue of XXL magazine when it hits newsstands in January of 2023 or online at the XXL store.

Look out for Pusha T’s new cover, and check out the other interviews in the magazine with Freddie Gibbs, Chance The Rapper, Ab-Soul, G Herbo, DaBaby, EST Gee, Murda Beatz, Morray, Ice Spice, Jeleel!, Armani White, Destroy Lonely, producer Dez Wright, singer Kiana Ledé, actor Shameik Moore, plus a look at hip-hop’s love for wrestling, a deep dive into how new artists get on in hip-hop these days, the ways in which women in rap succeeded in 2022, the rapper-run podcasts the game has grown to love and a tribute to rappers we lost this year.

See Images From Pusha T’s XXL Winter 2022 Issue Cover Story