By GOTTI

“FRESSHH” as always, Push! Montana delivers “The Next One” from “When Push! Comes To Shove” Vol. 2. Instead of relegating himself to painting pictures of concrete and corners, Push! takes listeners a little closer to home with his signature force added to each word he speaks.

• …“’My girl trippin’, said ‘Nigga you need to grow up’ /

   I looked at her and said ‘You know what? / Don’t say nothing to me ’til you grow nuts’ / 
  

  ‘Cause you don’t know how it feels to be a nigga / Made small in society, with dreams of being bigger.’”

The way slots in the rap game are filling faster than they’re coming open, it’s challenging for artists to elbow their way onto listeners’ radars. We’re not even talking being able to cash in on the art, especially during a time when 64% of Americans can’t pay for a $1000 emergency. With no guarantees or benefits, rap as a career pales in comparison to the idealized version so many of us grew up seeing and I’m starting to think “making it” requires more stamina than skills.

The ones who separate themselves from the pack are either part of the small few who are uniquely talented or the next subgroup of those able to will their way to the forefront. And even though “XXL cover, I got left out,” Montana has been blessed with both of the aforementioned characteristics so his turn is coming, just like so many of us. And much like us, he just has to find a way make it to the next check.

[Link] Push! Montana – “The Next One”

Everything [is] not all dark clouds. Check out Montana’s “On Deck” Interview on MTV2′s Sucker Free Countdown where he speaks on being from Brooklyn, the blessings he has received career-wise and the game plan for 2011 ’til infinity.

- The Smoking Section

PUSH! Montana

When it comes to street rap, specifically hustler music, there’s usually either that boastful shit or the reflective, honest music, and when it comes to the latter of those, PUSH! Montana is easily the nicest out right now. Through his words you can feel his stories and the emotion he puts into them, oh and he also has some of the sharpest, most clever bars as well as that Brooklyn swagger and flow which has proven time and time again which borough is the best. PUSH! Montana is a complete package MC and definitely a rapper that real mafuckas can relate to, and that anyone who’s gone through struggle will relate to.

Pouring his life into every line and proving himself as one of the most prolific and substantive MCs in the game, his latest effort, Fresh Dope is amazing from start to finish, something so rare these days. Right from the start the mixtape proves to be epic with “Who I Am” which boasts a beautiful hook over a hype but soulful beat while PUSH! introduces himself and his life with clever bars like “I remember filling out FAFSA, thinking bout the weed I was finna cop after” as well as simple but harsh truths like “no man can say he never sinned”. Elsewhere he notes that “they don’t need no work for a conspiracy charge”, this is real life music.

PUSH! has this ability to make you care about his stories from the jump the way you would care about an MC whose career you’ve followed for a decade, just like Nas did on Illmatic. Whether it’s the intense “Income” (“what good is income when the end come?”) or the somber yet informative “FreshDopeBoy” every bar PUSH! spits is filled with heart, every line is a lesson or an observation such as “got a jail record so we can’t find work, so we buy work…”. On “The Next One” he takes a phrase that is so constantly spoken in hip hop, that of the next big MC, and he asks how that rapper is supposed to live in the mean time, “what the fuck I’m supposed to do until the check come”. Songs like this are what set him apart from everyone else in the game as far as concepts and ideas.

Most rappers these days seem more concerned with popping bottles or bragging about how much money they got, but even when PUSH! is spitting those boastful rhymes he manages to do it in a way that lets you know he’s just telling it like it is, you gotta take the bad with the good and PUSH! manages to bring that perfect balance which is what makes his music so relatable, there’s droughts in the streets too and he lets you know that above all else surviving isn’t as easy at some rappers make it seem.

With Fresh Dope you get exactly that, as PUSH! Montana not only grips you with his bars, but spits over music so emotional that you truly feel it. This isn’t just another street rapper spitting cocaine lines, PUSH! Montana is a rapper’s rapper, an MC whose lyrics are powerful as well as clever, this is true artist who is telling his story for the world to hear. Check out Fresh Dope from PUSH! Montana as well as Rebirth of Fresh Vol. 1 with Don Cannon and look out for more from this incredible street scholar.

(Source: reppghhiphop.com)