Winning Clipse’s first Grammy apparently required more than making one of the most acclaimed Rap albums of their career. Pusha T says he and Malice spent awards season doing the kind of campaigning that rarely makes it into an acceptance speech, including showing up wherever the Recording Academy wanted them and, in his words, kissing “so much ass” along the way.
“You go everywhere, wherever the [Recording] Academy wants you to be at,” Pusha said during a Sept. 3 appearance on The Breakfast Club, according to Complex. “You have to campaign for the award.” He laughed about the process, but admitted that he wanted Clipse to sweep all five of their nominations. “We came home with one, man. Ain’t no biggie.”
That one trophy carried considerable weight. “Chains & Whips,” featuring Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams, won Best Rap Performance at the 2026 Grammys, giving Clipse their first win more than two decades after their earliest Grammy recognition. Let God Sort Em Out was also nominated for Album of the Year and Best Rap Album, while “The Birds Don’t Sing” competed for Best Rap Song. “So Be It” earned a Best Music Video nomination. The Recording Academy had Clipse among the ceremony’s most anticipated Rap artists, including a performance with Pharrell during the telecast.
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Pusha’s comments also pull back the curtain on how seriously the brothers approached an awards run that might have looked effortless from the outside. Their return with Let God Sort Em Out came nearly 16 years after Til the Casket Drops, and the project immediately put them back in major awards conversations rather than treating the reunion as nostalgia. Before nominations were even announced, Pusha had already said the album was strong enough that Clipse “need to take something home,” while Malice argued that they had already proven themselves artistically and were ready to take that work into the Grammy system.
The night ultimately belonged heavily to Kendrick, who won Best Rap Album for GNX and used his acceptance speech to salute Clipse as his “brothers.” Pusha, meanwhile, seems less interested in pretending the road to their own trophy was purely about voters hearing the record and making a decision.
