A good rule of thumb: never trust an artist who says they’re going to retire. They might mean it in the moment, but history has consistently proven that they always come back. Sometimes, they don’t even last a year into their retirement. All of a sudden, they’re back in the mix teasing their next project. The best you’re likely to get is an artist in a position to finally slow down and make something at their own pace, rather than at the industry standard.
Hip-hop has seen an abundance of rappers change their minds about the prospect of retiring. For example, J. Cole admitted that he couldn’t commit to the idea despite teasing it with The Fall-Off for years. Instead, he explained he was just closing the book on the story he wanted to tell across his career. With that finished, he seemed happy to just make anything, whether it’s another album, feature verses, or just producing for someone.
In the spirit of remembering rappers who couldn’t stick to the idea of retirement, we looked back at three hip-hop legends and how they unsuccessfully tried to quit rapping. They already left behind historic resumes to warrant the decision. But they never stuck with it and they still rap today, even if it’s less than they used to.
three Rappers Who Announced Their Retirement But Eventually Went Back on Their Word
Jay-Z
Arguably the most famous example of a rapper trying to retire, Jay-Z wanted out of the rap game relatively early into his career. He already had a couple of genre-defining albums under his belt and built an empire with Roc-A-Fella. Eventually, he reached a point where he wanted to venture out further into the business side of things.
That mindset led to The Black Album in 2003, which was slated to be his grand departure from hip-hop. Clearly, that retirement didn’t last long. He went back on his decision only two years later and continued to vouch for the top spot in hip-hop. Even today, almost ten years since his last solo album and at a point where he doesn’t have to rap, he’s still toying around with the idea of another record.
50 Cent
50 Cent’s big retirement tease came during the height of his career. He went head to head with Kanye West in a sales battle, one 50 felt extremely confident in winning. To prove he wasn’t worried about losing, he put his career on the line. By the end of the rivalry, Ye beat him by over 200,000 copies.
Surely, that meant 50 would be a man of his word, right? Absolutely not. He made two mixtapes and an album two years later. Still, he didn’t have to retire for Kanye West to shift the tides of hip-hop forever and still take the throne from him during that battle.
Nowadays, 50 Cent is more mogul and actor than he is rapper. But every once in a while, he’ll come out of hiding with a verse to show he can still hop on a track with anyone.
Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco always wanted to retire because he was sick and tired of the music industry. He would either get jerked around by his old label or never felt like he got the recognition he deserved as a rapper. Even at the peak of his powers back in 2007, he was “85 percent sure” about walking away from hip-hop.
“I love music, I love performing, I love my fans, but I don’t like recorded music. I don’t like record labels and I don’t like the industry. It’s such an unfair deal,” Lupe Fiasco said at the time.
“It wears and tears on you. It’s not that I’m scared of work, but that work starts to eat away at you and you need to start to make the decision about how you’re going to proceed. At a certain point, you’re going to have to kind of concede to the darker side of doing business to really succeed or you’re going to have to make that song you really don’t feel that you should be making to achieve a certain level of success. It’s like growing up and really looking at the purpose of life and meaning of life and realizing that this is really minuscule in comparison to everything else. Recorded music is the worst, the absolute worst next to probably slavery. In a lot of respects, it can amount to just that.”
Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage for Entertainment Weekly Magazine
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