Linking up to record a song was seemingly always in the cards for Pusha T and Thomas Mars. Both 46 years old, the rapper and the Phoenix singer made their forays into the music industry when they were still teenagers. Pusha formed the hip-hop duo Clipse with his older brother, No Malice, when he was 15. Mars, meanwhile, began jamming on the guitar with his brother as a child before forming Phoenix, initially as an indie rock garage band in the early \u201890s, operating out of his parents\u2019 home in Versailles.<\/p>\n
While long admirers of one another\u2019s work, the paths of Pusha and Mars never directly crossed. It wasn\u2019t until Pusha discovered Phoenix would listen to one of his songs, 2013\u2019s \u201cNumbers on the Boards,\u201d to hype them up ahead of a performance \u2014 a routine that gradually grew into the band performing the song during soundchecks \u2014 that their worlds started to collide in earnest. Word had gotten back to Pusha more than once over the years that the band were fans of him, and he was already familiar with a few of Phoenix\u2019s indie rock anthems.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Chad Hugo, producer and one-half of the Neptunes, was working on a remixed version of Phoenix\u2019s \u201cAll Eyes on Me\u201d and thought Pusha\u2019s sound would give the track the perfect edge. For the rapper, hopping on the remix was a \u201cno brainer.\u201d Pusha and Mars even went on to perform the song live at the We Love Green music festival in Paris ahead of its official release.<\/p>\n
In a new interview, the two artists delve into their collaboration, from working with Hugo to hitting the stage together.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re both so well known in your respective genres, but you only happened to meet face to face when the \u201cAll Eyes on Me\u201d remix came about. What was your relationship to one another\u2019s music before then?<\/strong><\/p>\n Mars: Musically we’ve definitely always known each other. Pusha was one of our dream collabs. For about 10 years, we\u2019d play \u201cNumbers on the Boards in our green room before going on stage We’d get obsessive with with the whole My Name is My Name<\/em> album, but it was that song in particular. At some point, the planets aligned.<\/p>\n Pusha: I actually heard about \u201cNumbers on the Boards\u201d being played at his shows. It kept randomly being brought up to me, and I was like \u201coh, that’s so dope\u201d\u2019 And then Chad Hugo called me and was like, \u201cyou have to be on this song that I\u2019m doing a a remix.\u201d I didn’t know that Chad had any connection to the band before I got on it. It was already a no brainer, though, because the song was just dope originally.<\/p>\n Mars: And I knew Chad from from playing in Norfolk, Virginia. Every time we played there, he was down to hang out after the show. I knew that Push was from there too though.<\/p>\n