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Pascal Le Segretain / Staff by way of Getty Images and Michael Owens / Contributor by way of Getty Images

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Pusha T at Louis Vuitton’s Paris Fashion Week present and Kendrick Lamar at Apple Music Halftime Show Interview

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Key Takeaways:

• Kendrick Lamar practically appeared on two tracks from Clipse’s upcoming album, ‘Let God Sort Em Out.’
• Pusha T revealed that label considerations over optics led him to exit Def Jam Recordings to maintain Lamar’s characteristic on “Chains & Whips.”
• The remaining tracklist contains just one Lamar collaboration, leaving followers speculating about what may’ve come from a second.

On Monday (June 30), Clipse formally revealed the tracklist for his or her extremely anticipated comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out. The 13-song LP will arrive with contributions from Pharrell Williams, Nas, John Legend, Tyler, The Creator and, maybe most notably, Kendrick Lamar. As it seems, followers nearly obtained two options from the Compton lyricist, if solely he hadn’t been “super busy.”

Sitting down with Jerry Lorenzo on Tuesday’s (July 1) episode of Spotify’s “Countdown To,” Pusha T defined how their first Lamar collaboration, “Chains & Whips,” got here collectively, and the way a second effort with the Compton lyricist slipped away. “It was a situation where the traffic of people just coming in and out of the studio, and it happened to be a person from Kendrick’s camp who was in the studio,” the Virginia native defined.

“We let his folks hear the album, and he called [Lamar] and was like, ‘Listen, you need to get on this,’” Pusha T recalled. “And mind you, at this particular time, he was just super busy. Man, [I] sent them songs over, [and] he just called back laughing…He was like, ‘Yo, I wanna do two.’”

Even getting only one Lamar characteristic proved so vital to Pusha T that he willingly paid seven figures to exit his Def Jam Recordings deal. According to him, the label “didn’t like the optics” of two of Drake’s largest rivals teaming up, particularly with the Canadian star currently suing their parent company, Universal Music Group.

“[Def Jam] pinpointed a line where the phrase ‘Trump card’ was used. It’s so stupid,” Pusha T instructed The New York Times’ “Popcast” in June. Interestingly, when Clipse and Pharrell gave followers an early preview of Let God Sort Em Out that very same month, the road was noticeably lacking. For now, followers should wait till the album drops on July 11 to search out out what else — if something — about Lamar’s verse had the label so on edge.