Hold On
by Pusha T (featuring Rick Ross)

Album: My Name Is My Name (2013)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Pusha and Rick Ross spitting out downtrodden verses whilst an uncredited Kanye West supplies background vocals. "It's hard and emotional; it's what people wanna hear... as a rap purist," Pusha told The Boombox. "It almost has the same qualities to me that 'Sixteen' with [Ross] and Andre 3000 [had]. Not that the song sounds anything like that, but just the fact that you want to hear rap. Like you just hear two guys blacking out over verses."
  • The song starts off with Pusha drawing a clear line between his life as a rapper and his former one as a dope dealer:

    "I sold more dope than I sold records, you n---as sold records never sold dope
    So I ain't hearin' none of that street s--t, 'cause in my mind you motherf---ers sold soap."

    Surprised at Pusha's claim that his income from record sales have yet to exceed his profits from drug dealing? My Name Is My Name is only Pusha's fourth album, his other three being released with his brother Malice under the Clipse moniker. The sibling's 2002 debut Lord Willin' was a RIAA-certified gold record, but their two subsequent releases (Hell Hath No Fury and Til the Casket Drops) didn't fare so well. "I don't think I sold that many records," the rapper told MTV News. "My run in the music game hasn't been the average rise to success. You're right, I have sold a million records. My favorite album, I've sold no records on Hell Hath No Fury. I only got three albums, I've been in the game since 2002, it's 2013 I only got three albums with the Clipse."
  • The music video finds Pusha returning to the streets with Ross where they deliver their testimonial verses to a classroom full of at-risk young adults. The scene morphs into a memorial service setting, with shots of black men wearing T-shirts depicting victims of random gun violence. "The concept of 'Hold On' is me and Ross performing in front of some neighborhood guys, lecturing and basically telling the people of the neighborhood - our peers, essentially - that we' re here for them and we' re doing this for them," Push T told MTV News.

    He added: "Ross is a perfect fit for any song with me, personally, because I feel like he's one of the people I could count on to give a clean, concise, immaculate verse."

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