Lil Uzi Vert, Nas, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and the most infamous, J. Cole/Kendrick Lamar, have all promised us albums. Where they at, though?
Over the years, we have been teased with snippets of new music by our favorite artists. Though a lot of this music has yet to reach our daily playlists, we are still hopeful that one day, these albums will make it to the public sphere. Some have been teasing their projects, and/or speaking on it for so long that some may have stopped paying attention, but to others, this wait has only increased the anticipation.
With everyone from legends to newcomers, we’ve compiled a list of a few albums that we wish had a release date, while providing some history and background to the albums in question.
Around the releases of Section.80 and Sideline Story in 2011, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole teased a collaboration album/mixtape with snippets of two songs that were to be featured on it. They were entitled “Shock the World” ft BJ the Chicago Kid, and “Temptation" ft Javonte.
These snippets, along with the Cole produced “The Jig is Up (Dump’n),” (which arrived later in 2012), whet the public's appetite. In the years that came, the demand and anticipation for this project has increased exponentially.
In an interview with with the Breakfast Club in 2015, following the release of Kendrick’s album, To Pimp A Butterfly, K. Dot stated that “it’s always just been a schedule issue.” He also stated that, due to various lulls in between working on the joint effort, some of the songs became quite dated, and equally, he and Cole had both grown as artists.
Their last - or most recent - collaborations date back to 2015’s “Black Friday,” with a pair of song releases. On this fateful day, the two traded instrumentals. Cole rapped over Kendrick’s “Alright” off of To Pimp A Butterfly, while Kendrick rapped over “A Tale of Two Cities” off of Cole’s 2014 Forest Hill Drive. On J. Cole’s take of K. Dot’s song, he rapped the lines “‘When you and K. Dot shit drop?’ Bitch never, they can’t handle two black niggas this clever. But this February, bet shit get scary when I fuck around and drop…,” leaving room for speculation that something would drop in February of the following year. Unfortunately, nothing dropped, but fans still continued to anticipate its release, as the duo stated the album would drop “out of the sky.” Perfect strategy to keep fans on their toes. Who knows, it may drop tomorrow...but probably not.
The last mention, or update, from either camp, came from Black Hippy’s Ab-Soul, in December 2016. On a press run for his album DWTW, Soulo stated, "They got something in the works. They've been working on that motherfucker for a while." He also stated that, "You never know with these guys... I don't know too much about it. I just hope the use my verse," hinting that Soulo may have a verse on the project. We are still anticipating more information, let alone more music.
Nas
SHARE PICTURE
Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
Back in 2012, Nasty Nas released the Grammy-nominated album Life is Good. He’s been teasing his latest work, which is still untitled, ever since. Back on April 2nd, 2013, the Queensbridge MC made a post on Twitter stating that his new album’s title would be released later that year. Nothing was ever announced. However, in a brief interview with REVOLT TV on July 23rd, 2013, Timbaland teased a new Nas song called “Sinatra in the Sand” featuring Jay Z and Justin Timberlake, which was a likely contender for the Nas album. Tim also made comments about the Nas album, stating that he believes the album will be “phenomenal.”
Further in the timeline to Nas’ untitled release, last year, during an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Nas stated in response to the delay, “I gotta live life, I gotta experience things. Sometimes music can shift society, man.”
Though the album has not been released, Nas has dropped a few loose cuts including “The Season” produced by J. Dilla, and he’s made a number of appearances on songs including “Figure It Out” off of French Montana’s Wave Gods mixtape alongside Kanye West, and "Wrote My Way Out" on the Hamilton Mixtape, most notably, however might be the song entitled “Nas Album Done.”
The song “Nas Album Done” appeared on DJ Khaled's Major Key album. When it dropped in July 2016, obviously anticipation for the album increased. However, still, there was nothing-- we could only speculate as to what the hold up might be.
In a Billboard interview on April 12th, 2017, Nas had a few words regarding the album, “It’s not done 'til it hits the streets,” while confirming that fans could expect to hear the new album this year. Only time will tell, but hopefully he follows through with his promise.
Considering the fact that Nasir has been advancing as a business man more heavily in the past couple of years, with his clothing brand HSTRY, opening multiple branches of Sweet Chicks, and Mass Appeal, among other investments, it’s pretty clear that Nas’ time to create is limited. Due to his legendary rap status, we will easily forgive him, but we won’t so easily forget this album.
SHARE PICTURE
Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Kanye West, Turbo Grafx 16
Two weeks after the initial release of The Life of Pablo, on February 14, 2016, Mr. West took to twitter to announce that his next album would be entitled Turbo Grafx 16. Prior to this however, Quavo, of the Migos, posted a photo of himself along with Offset, Vic Mensa, Lil Yachty, and Big Sean, with Ye hiding in the background. In this same picture, you can see Turbo Grafx 16 written on a wall, while Quavo captioned the photo “TURBO.” All of this combined, hints at possible collaborations on the album, but mostly, it just confirms that Ye has definitely been working on his 9th studio album, beyond Kanye’s own affirmations.
On February 29th, 2016, we got a taste of other possible contributors to the album. Ibn Jasper, Kanye’s longtime barber/circle of trust member, posted a photo which included the likes of Kid Cudi, Plain Pat, and Mike Dean captioned "TURBO GRAFX 16 day 1 #PABLo #MikeDean #CUDi #PlainPat." Fast forward to just this week, and a very similar collection of people were spotted at studio digs, once again.
Based off the information that is publicly available, including photographs and video clips, it’s safe to say that the album has been in the works for over a year and a half. On March 2nd, 2016, Kanye teased his fans with a possible sample that may be used on the album, from a Sufjan Stevens song called “Death With Dignity,” via an image he’d posted on Twitter. He has also stated in previous interviews that he has over 40 songs with Kendrick Lamar and Young Thug, two artists who have extremely different styles.
In the year since the release of The Life Of Pablo, though, Yeezy has been going through it. He’s been in and out of the hospital, dealing with apparent mental health issues, while also dealing with his wife, Kim Kardashian, being the victim of a robbery in Paris. Hopefully Kanye has fully recovered and is doing better - we can only imagine how all his recent trials and tribulations could be turned into eye-opening and relatable music for the masses.
Lil Wayne, the front runner for Cash Money Records and the Young Money boss, has been dealing with label issues in recent years, all of which we’ve documented heavily on HNHH. These label issues have resulted in the lengthy delay of Tha Carter V.
With so much controversy behind Wayne’s current situation, it’s only right that the fan’s anticipation for the album would be that much more heightened.
Allegedly, the album’s delays are due to legal issues regarding Lil Wayne’s contract with Birdman, and unpaid money owed to him from work over the years.
Over the course of his label woes with Cash Money, the Louisiana rapper has stated interest in signing with Roc Nation specifically. On April 21, 2016, during a guest appearance on ESPN’s Undisputed, he recalled a conversation with Jay Z saying that, “It was nothing but a simple thing, just friend-to-friend, ‘I just want to help you.’ That’s all it was. ‘I just want to help you man. In any way I can.’ And right now he’s just going to help me in any way he can, and that’s just what it is.”
On top of the headache that Cash Money is causing Lil Wayne, there’s Martin Shkreli. The infamous businessman and ‘Pharma Bro,’ as well as the sole purchaser of the one-of-one Wu-Tang album, Once Upon a time in Shaolin leaked songs from an alleged version of Tha Carter V. In May of 2017, he claimed to have bought the album from someone outside of Wayne’s camp. Although not too many details have been made public, Shrekli boasts the sale was legal in the terms of Civil law. He’s also stated that neither Universal, Birdman nor Lil Wayne would be able to sue him. Although he claims to have the album, he has not leaked entire songs to the public, just snippets via webcast. These alleged songs include “Mona Lisa” featuring Kendrick Lamar, and another called “The Life of Carter.”
Even with all this drama, Wayne has figured out a way to get new (or previously unheard) music into the hands of the public. He’s released No Ceilings 2, FWA (Free Weezy Album) via Tidal, ColleGrove with 2 Chainz, the long-awaited joint effort with T-Pain, T-Wayne, and the 4 track project In Tune We Trust in the interim. We hope Weezy gets his situation resolved, but with him receiving so much support from fellow MCs like Rick Ross, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Nicki Minaj, among others in the industry, he’ll surely bounce back from this, no matter the final outcome.
Lil Uzi Vert, the Philadelphia native and self-proclaimed “rock star,” has been prepping the follow-up to his break-out mixtape, Luv is Rage, for some time now. This project has perhaps been the most heavily teased on this list -- is it also the most anticipated, though? (Sound off in the comments).
After being featured on the major single by Migos, “Bad and Boujee,” and dominating Soundcloud and beyond with his monstrous single “XO Tour Llif3,” Uzi has been killing it in the streaming world.
On Episode 111 of The Joe Budden Podcast, Joe Budden revealed details of a conversation he had with Michael Kyser, an executive at Atlantic Records. According to the executive, there are no plans to drop an Uzi album at the moment, mostly because he has been dominating the streaming charts so much, doing 50 million streams a week.
On April 2017, Don Cannon gave the fans some much needed clarification regarding the album. During a live stream he stated, “If you didn’t hear, LUV Is Rage is not dropping no time soon. It’s not going to be a long time from now, but not within this month. We still working on the album. It’s a process. You got to make the album, mix the album, master the album. Put it out.” You can check it out below.
Following this reveal, on an episode of Gangsta Grillz Radio on Shade 45 which premiered on July 21st, 2017, 5 new Lil Uzi songs were played, feeding the fan’s appetite for new music. Uzi later clarified that none of these songs would be included on his album however, stating “”we coming way harder den dat.”
Y'all thought them songs was on luv is rage 🙄 we coming way harder den dat 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔊🦇2®
Finally, on July 27th, 6 days after this multi-song premiere, frequent Uzi collaborator Maaly Raw stated that the album (LUV Is Rage 2) was basically done, and they their camp was trying to get a few more songs to really perfect it. Giving credit to Lil Uzi Vert’s fast-paced recording process, he stated that everything Uzi has been doing previously has been elevated on the upcoming project, referring to the album as a “classic.”
In the meantime, you can catch Lil Uzi jumping off of stages, and being chased by crowds of fans at his shows.
