Pusha T, “DAYTONA”
Pusha T, “DAYTONA”
GOOD Music
Photography: Tina Brown
Art Direction: Kanye West
In May 2018, Kanye West’s GOOD Music label was pushing out one album a week. In addition to Kanye’s ye album and his Kid Cudi collaboration, Kids See Ghosts, GOOD Music also put out Pusha T’s third studio album, DAYTONA, which dropped on May 25, 2018.
Pusha T said the album’s cover had a huge, and very expensive, last minute revision. Kanye West forked over $85,000 for an image of Whitney Houston’s drug infested bathroom, which was taken by Tina Brown in 2006 and featured in the National Enquirer. It was taken at Houston’s Atlanta, Georgia home at the height of her crack addition, where she was allegedly smoking an eight ball at a time.
According to Pusha T:
“He definitely makes me nervous. He makes me so nervous. He changed my artwork last night at 1 a.m. He changed my artwork at 1 a.m. ’Cause he wasn’t feeling it. 1 a.m., my phone rings. No Caller ID. ‘Yo.’ ‘Hey, yeah, I think we should change the artwork and I like this other artwork.’ Now, this other artwork is 85-grand. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t wanna pay for that. And I wasn’t even gonna ask you to pay for that. We picked what we picked. It’s here. It’s ready.’ ‘No, this what people need to see to go along with this music. I’ma pay for that.’”
The decision to feature his late wife’s bathroom didn’t set well with Bobby Brown, saying it was “bad taste.” He went on to express disappointment in Kanye West. “He’s already crazy. I knew that when I first met him. Now he’s pushing the bar a little bit. He needs somebody to slap him up or something. And I’m just the person to do it.”
Houston’s niece, Damon Elliot, expressed distaste with the decision and said it was a “tacky” publicity stunt to sell records. “What is the creative side of this? What’s the point? It shows no creativity.”
