PUSHA T TALKS LOVE& STRATEGY
The Norfolk rapper discusses how he is helping make the region a platform for emerging artists
Day one of the first Something in the Water was, unfortunately, rained out.
Of the few events that would go on that April 2019 afternoon, one was an Apple Music podcast taping that brought together festival founder Pharrell Williams and his Neptunes co-producer Chad Hugo, rapper Pusha T and super-producer Timbaland.
For an hour, the Hampton Roads natives, joined by Williams’ OTHERtone co-host Scott Vener and producer Teddy Riley, took turns re-creating iconic beats that have given Virginia hip-hop and pop music a sound of its own. Among those hits: Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” — a Timbaland production — and the Neptunes-helmed Clipse record “Grindin’.”
Obvious to the audience watching history go down was Pharrell’s commitment to put Virginia talent in the spotlight with
his festival, which brought thousands to the beach city for the weekend.
Unbeknownst to the hundreds who packed the hall was that Norfolk’s Pusha T, born Terrence Thornton of the rap duo Clipse, was grinding behind the scenes on a Virginia-centric plan of his own.
The yin to Williams’ yang, Pusha had long dreamed of creating a platform to mentor, support and spotlight Virginia artists.
This year, before the coronavirus pandemic brought the industry to a halt, Pusha unveiled what he’d been working on all along, Heir Wave Music Group.
“It’s a passion project, for sure, for me,” Pusha said in a phone interview, explaining the idea behind the record label’s name. “The new heir to the throne of the music game.”
Since 2015, he’s served as the president of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music record label, shepherding artists like 070 Shake, Francis and the Lights and Sheck Wes.
Working in that capacity is what spurred the idea, he said. Support is lacking for emerging artists in Virginia, he said, and that needs to change.
“I wanted to create and build that kind of infrastructure for talent from here to flourish,” he said. “Overseeing album releases on G.O.O.D. Music, whether it was 16 million singles sold on Designer, an artist I found and brought to the label … I was like, wow, this is something that I could be doing here at home.”
Virginia needs a tutorial of sorts, Pusha said. Otherwise, artists will continue to leave the state for musical hotbeds like New York or Los Angeles, as Pharrell, Missy Elliott and Timbaland did before him.
“I was always scared to leave home and go to L.A. because my writing has a lot to do with the energy and culture that I’m around in Virginia,” he said. But to further his career, he didn’t have a choice.
Then “Grindin’ ” came out in 2002, and it became an instant hit. Fans everywhere tried their hardest to mimic the iconic, clangy beat by hitting their hands against everything from lockers to dashboards.
“People were like, oh my God, y’all are from V-A. It always gave me a sense of pride,” he said.
For local artists, Pusha’s manager, Douglas Wilder, said the inability to book bigger shows locally is an issue.
“We had a hard time even doing shows here,” Wilder said in a phone interview. “Usually for Push to get a show in Virginia, he had to have a new album out, whereas other artists from Atlanta or Chicago or L.A. or Miami can always go home and be like, oh, I’m gonna do something tonight.”
It’s the nature of Virginia, Wilder said.
The problem exists outside the realm of hip-hop, too.
Just ask Matt Maeson, a singersongwriter from Virginia Beach whose 2019 tour in support of his breakthrough album, “Bank of the Funeral,” sold out all 20 dates but didn’t include a stop in the singer’s hometown. His management opted for a stop in Richmond instead.
“I played Peabody’s and open mics and did things like that. But I had big aspirations to make a career out of this, but it’s really, really hard to do in Virginia, as any Virginia artist will tell you,” Maeson said in a recent interview about his decision to move to Los Angeles.
Admittedly, Pusha said it’s a lot to take on but he’s eager to mentor the budding stars he and his teammates come across, which includes teaching them how to compete locally and nationally.
“It’s really a multilayered process. You have to get the artists and bring them up to speed to the level in which they have to compete. You have to understand the way in which people are putting out music, the rate at which your competition is creating music and being in the know of the climate artistically,” he said.
What’s key to creating that infrastructure, though, is activating the community and showing them they can support the “artist across the street from you in the same way you can appreciate an artist on MTV.”
Pusha said he looks to emulate how Atlanta, the Southern epicenter of hip-hop and rap, responded some 20 years ago when its artists couldn’t snag radio time on Northern stations.
“In response, they created their own infrastructure. They had to create independent leads from mom-and-pop record stores, they had to promote themselves. Their local radio stations would play them the same way they would play national artists,” he said.
Now, Pusha said the South runs the game. Watching it all go down, he said he’s taking it upon himself to make it happen for his home state.
Since he took his passion project public in February,
the label and its social media channels have been nonstop hustling.
At launch, they spotlighted Petersburg native and label artist Kahri 1k and his debut project, “The Ghost of Pecan Acres.” Juviee 2Es, a 20-year-old rapper from Newport News, is the latest to get Pusha’s official co-sign.
He can’t yet sign every promising artist he comes across, so he’s created several platforms to give them any amount of exposure he can by partnering with local station 103 Jamz FM for a show that features only local artists.
They created Heir Wave Radio, a YouTube channel that gives space only to hopefuls from the area. Artists can submit their songs for consideration on the label’s website.
Most recently, Pusha started curating playlists called Heir Wave Radio 001 on Spotify and Apple Music that do more of the same. The “soundtrack to Virginia’s now and Virginia’s future,” he calls them.
This week, those playlists give love to 23 artists including Leikeli47, a Danville rapper who showed off on stage at SITW last year, rocking Norfolk State University athleticwear and a coordinating gold balaclava.
Over the summer, Heir Wave put up a billboard on the border of Norfolk’s Park Place neighborhood. Featuring a black and white photo taken during protests in Richmond earlier in the year, the label’s logo and website, its message is simple and clear cut, he said.
“I want kids who ride their bikes past it to say to themselves, wait a minute, I like music. I should check them out,” Pusha said as a soft laugh emerged under his words, giving way to his own memories of childhood in Virginia Beach.
When Pusha was 8 and his older brother, Gene — who makes up the other half of Clipse — was about 13, he watched his older brother scribble his own raps in a notebook he took everywhere.
To get Gene’s attention, Pusha did what any pesky little brother would: He tore the pages right out of that notebook and shredded them up.
“Gene would ask me why I was doing that and tell me it was for the people on TV,” which blew Pusha’s mind, he said. “It was such a foreign concept to me that that goal was achievable. Kids should never feel like that. I’m lucky my brother had that insight. And when kids here see that billboard, they need to know we’re close. This is achievable.”
COVID -19 might have stopped Pusha from booking bigger shows for his proteges, but it opened up another opportunity that he couldn’t turn down.
In June, Pusha again partnered with 103 Jamz and the Ricky Davis Foundation to feed his city. For an afternoon, Pusha and his team set up tables in the parking lot of Military Circle, where they passed out groceries and PPE to more than 3,000 residents.
Community engagement will remain a centerpiece of his label’s efforts, he said.
“Anyone that I get in business with has to give back to my home. That’s just what it is. I’m in business with Adidas? Fine. Adidas has to give 1,000 shoes, 1,000 smiles. Going back to school, that’s what we’re going to do, you know?”
He’s got dozens of ideas and goals to bring Virginia to the peak of conversation and envy. The state has incredible potential to engender community and give tourists more reason than a beach to come here.
He credits Pharrell’s Something in the Water for making that known last year. He bets the Oceanfront festival will become one of the biggest arts experiences in the country, maybe even the world.
“The greatest part about it was all the beautiful landscape we have here, we now know it can be land for this great, huge progressive thriving area or it can be a place with a Ferris wheel,” he said. “They’ll come for the fest, but don’t you want them to come back in November, too?”
It’s why Pusha T believes leaders in Virginia — Hampton Roads, specifically — should embrace what he and Pharrell are trying to do.
“I love this place a lot, you know and I want everyone to know Heir Wave is for Virginia. This is my lane and I’m just trying to do what I can to bring the best and make the most of the potential that it has. It’s a dream that we’re watching come together piece by piece.”