Pusha T occupies a unique spot in hip-hop. He's a twenty-year veteran with access to the swankiest production but very little of the nagging pressure to surf mainstream trends that runs his peers ragged. He wrestled the major label rap machine and won, and his scathing sneer has menaced a decade of hip-hop top dogs, from Lil Wayne to Drake. He's the rare instance of a rap talent sharpening over time; few who made their first recordings in the late '90s, as he did as one half of the Clipse, can be argued to possess a firmer grasp on their voice today than in their youth. Since jumping to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music after the Clipse began a now-permanent hiatus, Pusha T has zeroed in on a mercenary style both weathered and totally disrespectful; he's seen whole labels, crews, and organizations dissolve, and he's happy to tell you how yours will come apart on you if you're not careful.

A popular rapper with a disdain for the machinery of hip-hop fame is a dangerous assassin, and Pusha spends a good piece of his sophomore studio album Ki**ng Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude pulling back the curtain on rap stardom to reveal it for smoke and mirrors. "M.F.T.R." razzes rappers who'd "rather be more famous than rich," and "Crutches, Crosses, Caskets" shames a platinum rapper whose "momma lives in squalor," before smirking that Push's own mother is "in the Bahamas for the month/ She probably sittin' in her pajamas, having lunch." In a year where a multi-platform media mogul like 50 Cent declared bankruptcy, and Drake and Lil Wayne grumble publicly about Cash Money not paying up, Push's dart in the Biggie-sampling lead single "Untouchable" about which companies' checks don't bounce is sound business advice as savage quip (or vice versa).

Darkest Before Dawn isn't all trash talk; Pusha still takes inspiration from his dealer days, both good and bad. Some of the more revealing corners of the record delve into how he coped when things went sour. "The crash don't kill, it's how you survives it," he raps on "Keep Dealing." Early on in "F.I.F.A." he snaps "I'm my city's Willy Falcon/ How you niggas celebrating Alpo?" in reference to the Floridian coke trafficker who once beat charges of pushing nearly 80 tons of white by bribing the jury and the Harlem shooter Alpo Martinez, subject of the movie Paid in Full. Pusha's second act, both after his group folded and after the Clipse's former manager pled guilty to charges alleging he was a drug kingpin, is a rebirth few inside rap or out have enjoyed. Irv Gotti was never the same after the Feds ran into the Inc offices, and try as he might, Family Hustle Tip will never be King again.

Imagine Tony Montana slipping out of the country scot-free ahead of his career-ending Scarface raid, and you arrive at the cocktail of spite and incredulity fueling Darkest Before Dawn. The swing from moneyed gall to grizzled paranoia is a well-trodden path in hip-hop and elsewhere, but the eye for detail in the writing and the claustrophobic, foreboding sonics set it apart from other rote goon rap fare. That these 10 songs hang together is testament to the writer's bleak vision, since they're technically flotsam from the forthcoming King Push (hence the protracted The Prelude subtitle). Perhaps the prevailing feeling he's not trying to impress us comes from the records he really intends to impact radio being saved for a different project. Whatever the case, Pusha dragged a crack team of rap maestros well outside their respective comfort zones for the occasion.

The production on Darkest Before Dawn is uncompromising headphone boom bap from people who don't really make it anymore. The curt "Intro" is a Metro Boomin beat uncharacteristically light on hellacious synths and heavy on cavernous, tribal stomp. For "Untouchable," Timbaland leaves his trademark bells and whistles behind for a skeletal array of dizzyingly tricky bass and snare hits. "M.P.A." is the most unfussed Kanye West production since "Otis." "F.I.F.A." gets a sputtering Rick Rubin style breakbeat from Q-Tip. Rap producers are dying to make and sell weird shit like this, but thirst for easily recognizable signature sounds pigeonholes rapper and beatsmith alike. Pusha T getting his collaborators to set aside their pet sounds is the mark of fearless showmen and inimitable chemistry.

To that end, Darkest Before Dawn is best explained as an exercise in pure craft for everyone involved, the kind of record being scared out of existence because chickenshit execs won't fund what they can't see topping the charts. The beats sound like money, and the raps are whip smart and cleanly tailored. Like Pusha's career post-Clipse, it's godly providence everything has gone as swimmingly as it has here. The resourceful hustler always finds his way.