Hot New Joint: "Untouchable" by Pusha T

As much as I hate to ‘review a review,’ I feel like to understand the new Pusha T single, “Untouchable,” something should be said about how Pitchfork’s Jayson Greene missed the point of the song.

“The point of a Pusha track is usually the feeling: a combination of haughtiness and certainty, joylessness and loathing, eloquence and disdain. It’s a good/bad feeling, bracing and clarifying, one that leaves you with a faint headache and unearned confidence. In other words, it’s a lot like the feeling he trafficked in before he was rapping,” Greene said in his short Friday morning write up of the track.

I will agree with him that the point of a successful Pusha track is, in fact, the feeling, but apparently this song evokes a feeling that that apparently didn’t resonate.

Presumably taken from Pusha’s long gestating sophomore album King Push, “Untouchable” works, and works well, because all the elements of a successful track fall into place. As Pusha T has shown in the past on songs like “King Push” and “Numbers on The Board,” both taken from his debut My Name is My Name, he works the best when constricted by a moody, atmospheric beat.

Enter production by Timbaland—providing a very un-Timbo beat here, structured around minimal percussion, and focused primarily on eerie, nearly reversed sounding keyboard twinkling. It creates a dark, claustrophobic environment for Pusha T to ventilate—he’s all visceral bravado here, which is again, one of the elements that makes this an incredibly successful and memorable song.

Yes, Pusha T still raps about cocaine—here he “crossfits the coca” into the ceiling. And yes, he still raps about luxury brands, as he’s always done. But buried within the white lines and finer things, what one must pay attention to is Pusha’s wordplay, and how dense and clever his lyrics can be once unpacked—e.g. “I drops every blue moon to separate myself from the kings of YouTube/I am more like U2, I am like Bono with the Edge,” he says in the song’s opening line, setting the stage for his dramatic, and triumphant return.

It’s been probably around a year since we last heard anything from Pusha T, with his 2014 single “Lunch Money” proving to be a one-off that led to no additional updates or news on King Push, the project that he started shortly after My Name is My Name was released in 2013.  Pusha T has always had patience, though—waiting for just the right moment to steal the spotlight—like 2006’s opus Hell Hath No Fury, back when he was still performing with his brother in Clipse, or his memorable guest verse on “Runaway” in 2010.

And then, of course, there’s the Notorious B.I.G. sample that serves as the song’s refrain—ripped from an obscure 1995 guest verse, Biggie speaks to us from beyond the grave as a way of connecting the best of the golden age of hip hop to now—“I’m the best since he died and he lied,” Push once said in the opening track to Hell Hath No Fury, referencing Biggie as the best, and Lil’ Wayne as the liar.

It’s that spectral sample, surrounded by an even ghostlier beat, anchored down by pointed and deliberate wordplay that makes “Untouchable” one of those successful Pusha T tracks—finding the artist operating in the darkness that makes him most comfortable.