It might be the end of an era for Kanye West... or he might be trolling us all. On July 9, the rapper seemed to make a pretty shocking announcement. “I am retiring from professional music,” he wrote in a text exchange shared by his collaborator Rich the Kid. “Not sure what else to do.” While that may sound like a decisive statement, West still has a few projects that have already been announced to come out soon, so his retirement may not be as set in stone as it seems just yet.
Shortly after Rich the Kid shared West’s retirement message on Instagram, he seemed to joke it wasn’t all that serious by quote-tweeting the screenshot and writing “ACTUALLY WE DROPPING FRIDAY 7/19” with a string of laughing emojis, revealing West is featured on his upcoming album Life’s a Gamble. Fans took the response to be a potential sign that the drastic text message may have just been used to promote the upcoming collab, although it’s still not totally clear if that’s the case or not.
Another indicator that the retirement may not be all too serious yet is that West has another upcoming music release he’s been hyping up for a while now. He was originally meant to release his second collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 2, back in May, but it still has yet to materialize. That said, Ty did recently promise that it’s nearly done and could drop any day now. On top of that, West and Ty are continuing to tour their Vultures listening party, which is slated to take stage in Korea this coming August.
With all this going on, it’s also true that West has been shifting his focus much more to non-musical ventures in recent years. He’s taken a special interest in fashion, as well as technological endeavors and — most infamous of all — political aspirations. But through it all, he has continued to steadily release music.
And if he really does decide to quit music, he has the perfect protégé to pick up the mic in his daughter North West.
