Pusha T Reveals How Clipse Secured Their Kendrick Lamar Feature

Pusha T has revealed just how Kendrick Lamar ended up on the Clipse‘s new album Let God Sort Em Out.

Speaking with Spotify, Pusha explained: “Clipse and Kendrick together, that speaks lyricism. I don’t think anyone wants anything other than that. There was a traffic of people coming in and out of the studio and one of the people just happened to be a person from Kendrick’s camp.

“We let his folks hear the album. He called them and was like ‘listen, you need to get on this’. At this particular time, he was super busy. He sent them songs over. He called back laughing like ‘okay, I gotta do it, don’t worry about it, I wanna do two.’ The idea of right place, right time makes everything happen.”

Kendrick’s verse on “Chains & Whips” has caused controversy for the Virginia duo and led to them departing Def Jam.

Pusha T shares how Kendrick Lamar ended up on ‘Let God Sort Em Out’ 💿

“He’s called back laughing… He was like, okay I gotta do it. Don’t worry about it, I wanna do two [songs].” pic.twitter.com/Lve2eBPTJP

— Kurrco (@Kurrco) July 1, 2025

Speaking to GQ, Pusha T described how their relationship with the storied label crumbled over Lamar’s feature on “Chains & Whips”.

He said: “They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing. And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there was like, ‘We’ll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can’t work because I’m still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go… ”

It was also revealed that Def Jam were concerned about the optics of two of Drake’s arch rivals teaming up on a track while his lawsuit against UMG was ongoing.

The brothers paid a large sum to get out of their contract with Def Jam and keep their album intact.

Their manager, Steven Victor, said to Billboard: “They said, ‘Find another deal, and let’s figure out a business.’ They didn’t drop us. They were like, ‘Pay us this money’ — which was an exorbitant amount of money, a shit ton of money — ‘and we’ll let you out the deal.’ That’s what happened. We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal.”