DA REAL3ST turns pressure into power with grit-fueled anthem “Push It”

DA REAL3ST is an emerging London voice commemorating resilience with ‘‘Push It.’ It’s an anthem for everyone who has ever felt the weight of the world and kept right on trucking.

Penned when MShaa was grinding nonstop, “Push It” is a brash and unapologetic jolt of adrenaline. It’s about defying the odds, finding your own way (where there is none, or even bringing a few down), and proving that deep in silent, furrow-clap-scarred earth, when absolutely nothing else can be heard from any single direction around you.

There’s always just one more fuel in the tank. “It’s about hustle. About pressure. It is literally about breaking down those barriers when nobody’s clapping for you already,” DA REAL3ST says. That openness cuts through every bar, making the album not only music but a tool of uplift.

It’s a song for every situation necessitating motivation, whether as part of a workout playlist, an anthem in the streets, or to pull you through those 3 AM pangs of existential self-doubt. It’s not the beats so much as DA REAL3ST’s sincerity that takes “Push It” over the top. He’s not rapping for clout; he’s rapping from experience, and listeners can feel that every word was earned.

A dyed-in-the-wool independent, DA REAL3ST wrote, recorded, and mixed everything himself. That D.I.Y. ethic also extends to the song’s own message: no waiting for permission, no cheating on costs (material or otherwise), just vision, effort, and action.

For DA REAL3ST, this is a reminder that as soon as you start to feel like quitting, it’s often when you’re on the verge of breaking through. And now on “Push It,” he’s letting you know that pressure isn’t something to break you; it makes you.