Pusha T recalls other artists “backing away” from him after Drake feud: “It was crazy”

Pusha T has admitted in a new interview that other artists were “backing away” from him after his highly publicised 2018 feud with Drake.

• READ MORE: Pusha T: “I’ve won the wars. I have withstood everything”

Per Billboard, on Saturday (December 7), Pusha T – real name Terrence LeVarr Thornton – was interviewed at an Art Basel event in Miami. Thornton had been asked about the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake that transpired this year, while touching on his own back-and-forth with the Canadian hitmaker in 2018.

Thornton spoke about how the aftermath of his Drake feud played out differently compared to Lamar, whose scathing diss track ‘Not Like Us’ shot up to number one on Billboard charts. The song also landed at number two on NME‘s 50 best songs of 2024.

In 2018, Thornton released his third studio album ‘Daytona’ – its last track ‘Infrared’ featured shots at Drake alleging his use of ghostwriters for his music. Drake responded with ‘Duppy Freestyle’, in which he criticised both Thornton and Kanye West, who produced ‘Daytona’.

Four days later, Thornton released ‘The Story Of Adidon’, a slithering diss track that leveled a handful of insults and allegations towards Drake – that he was “hiding a child” named Adonis from the world, and that he was insecure about his race. Its cover art repurposed a photo of Drake in blackface taken in 2007. The next month, Thornton declared the feud “over”.

Thornton reflected on the feud with interviewer Ari Melber: “I play in a space that my music is, I guess ‘semi-popular,’ I don’t even know if it’s that popular,” he said.

“It’s a very niche group that messes with me. So, it’s easy to dismiss my wins because it’s not as loud as everyone else’s. Kendrick on the other hand, his music is super popular so it’s a difference.”

He added that he felt Lamar “1000 percent” won the battle with Drake: “The truth really hurts and the truth cuts deep, and I think what Kendrick was doing was really talking to his soul. I believe that.”

However, he also recalled how artists were “backing away” from him after his feud with Drake ended, talking about how they “didn’t wanna get on records” or “do videos” with him. “The record labels, the artists, everybody were taking me off of songs, it was crazy,” he said.

• READ MORE: Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud: the full timeline

In 2020, Thornton was featured on a Pop Smoke track originally meant for his posthumous debut album ‘Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon’. The track, unofficially titled ‘Paranoia’, also featured verses from Young Thug and Gunna.

Thug later criticised Thornton for reigniting the Drake feud with the song: “I don’t respect the Pusha T verse on the song with me and Gunna cause I don’t have nun to do with y’all beef nor does Gunna, and if I knew that was about him I would’ve made changes on our behalf.. this rapper shit so gay,” he wrote in an Instagram story.

Thornton responded to Young Thug on his own Instagram story afterward, saying he doesn’t need his respect. “Don’t feel bad, nobody knew what the verse was abt,” Thornton wrote, tagging Young Thug.

In November, Drake filed two lawsuits against his label UMG over ‘Not Like Us’ – in which Lamar aimed at Drake and called him “a certified paedophile”. The first alleged the label “artificially inflated” the song’s streaming numbers and the other accused them of allowing the release of a defamatory song targeting one of their signees.