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In a new interview with Frazier Tharpe, for GQ, Pusha T said that he departed his longtime label home, Def Jam Recordings, over the company’s apparent reluctance to release a new Clipse song featuring a guest verse from Kendrick Lamar. “They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” he claimed. “And then they wanted me to take the record off.” Ultimately, the parties agreed to go their separate ways, according to Pusha T, and Clipse’s new comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out, is being released in partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
Pusha T’s longtime manager, Steven Victor, also discussed the rapper’s Def Jam departure in a new interview with Billboard. “Yeah, I don’t know what their concern is,” Victor said. “But they were like, ‘There’s a line here; we think it’s controversial; [Kendrick] needs to change it, or we’re not putting it out.’ We’re not going to ask him to change the verse. You guys are wrong. Stop looking at this this way. None of this makes any sense.”ss action waiver and arbitration provisions), and acknowledge our privacy policy.
According to Victor, Pusha T “had like three albums left” on his deal with Def Jam. In addition, he also claimed that the musician “had to pay seven figures to get out of the deal.”
Representatives for Def Jam Recordings and its parent company, Universal Music Group (UMG), did not respond to Pitchfork’s requests for comment.
Universal Music Group is facing active litigation from Drake, who claims that UMG “waged an unrelenting campaign” to promote Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” the hit diss track that Drake believes is defamatory. Both Drake and Lamar also release music through UMG-owned labels, Republic Records and Interscope Records, respectively.
Labels owned by UMG released or co-released many of the songs in the Lamar-Drake feud of 2024. For Lamar, those officially sanctioned tracks were: “Like That,” “Euphoria,” “Meet the Grahams,” and “Not Like Us.” On Drake’s side of things, he released “Push Ups” and “Family Matters” in partnership with Republic.
Years before the Kendrick Lamar and Drake imbroglio, Pusha T shared his own vicious diss track against the Canadian hip-hop superstar. Notably, Pusha T did not go through his label to drop “The Story of Adidon,” instead posting it on SoundCloud. Speaking with Billboard, Steven Victor said that Pusha T shared his song independently, in part, “to avoid” objections from Def Jam and UMG.
The new Clipse song featuring Kendrick Lamar is called “Chains & Whips,” and it played during one of Pharrell Williams’ runway shows for Louis Vuitton. It is currently unclear if the song (with or without a Kendrick Lamar verse) will appear on Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out, which gets released on July 11.
Not for the first time, Moby is speaking out against Donald Trump’s administration with clear frustration.
“The U.S. is collapsing under a deeply corrupt and shockingly ineffective administration,” the longtime electronic musician shared on social media. “These are unbelievably dark times.”
Moby went deeper into his thoughts through a video message, where he explained that people outside the United States keep asking Americans what is actually happening in the country.
“So many of my friends outside the United States keep asking me, ‘what the hell is happening over there?’ And honestly, we don’t even know,” he said. “The country is being controlled by one of the most corrupt, dangerous and incompetent administrations imaginable. Nobody fully understands what’s happening right now. These are very dark times in America.”
Moby joins a growing list of artists publicly criticizing Trump and MAGA politics, including Bruce Springsteen, Jack White, Eminem and Billie Eilish.
Earlier this year, Moby uploaded another statement to social media where he addressed how people should respond following the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. “The real question isn’t whether people should feel horrified or outraged by what’s happening in the United States,” Moby explained in the Jan. 26 clip. “The question is what are we actually going to do about it?”
The musician and activist also encouraged people to protest, saying demonstrations are a constitutional right and something he believes Trump’s administration is attempting to weaken.
In the end, he urged people to vote regularly, “not only during the upcoming midterms, even though those matter, but also in every special election throughout the year.” He also encouraged supporters to “stop giving money to the scumbag corporations backing Trump and ICE. We all know who they are. Boycott them.”
His newest remarks arrive as the U.S. Justice Department unveils a nearly $1.8 billion compensation fund for Trump allies who claim they were unfairly investigated. At the same time, the Strait of Hormuz remains shut down following military action launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran in late February without approval from Congress, leading to rising gas prices across the globe.
Throughout his independent music career, Moby has earned 10 entries on the Billboard 200 along with two songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and an enormous catalog of sync placements. Overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom, he is viewed as one of the defining artists of his era. He scored two No. 1 albums there with Play from 1999 and 18 from 2002, alongside 18 top 40 singles and two nominations for Best International Male at the BRIT Awards.
Check out Moby’s newest social media post below.
