Rap as a genre of music is an ever-growing aspect by which young people or youth as we like to call them, come out to speak on their topic of interest, be it from a person retrospective view where we get to know their family background better or talk about other varying important topics like injustice from the police, racism, institutionalism and so on. Yet some others have chosen to take a lighter approach on their subject matter by focusing their rap lyrics on drug-related issues, gang-related matters, boastful sex lives and mostly what has over-saturated the rap scene for quite a while now – funky upbeat party lyrics – which critics have streamlined to party rapping.
Whatever reasons or topic these rappers have for doing what they are doing, some things guarantee their successful stay in the music industry like good interaction on social media, a very broad fan base, staying relevant through the tabloids whether good or controversial and most importantly a constant time frame between music releases whether singles, mixtapes, EPs or albums.
For a very long time, a majority of the rappers that are going to feature on this article have kept fans and music critics in the dark in the aspect of their music releases have they have successfully chosen not to release any music (or just one or two at most) for over a year and more in the case of others.
The following rappers: Big Sean, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Lil Dicky and duo Rae Sremmurd have not released any music for over a year now except in the case of Nicki Minaj who released single “Yikes” just over a month ago and this has left fans, music critics and lovers of their music, in general, to wonder what’s in store from these rappers as some has shown to be enjoying their hiatus from the rap scene while others although constantly in the news haven’t given any clue whatsoever if we should be expecting an album, mixtape, EP, or even the least of a single from them in 2020.
Every rapper differs in the way he or she chooses to approach the rap industry, so we are going to consider them individually as to what may the cause for their continuing absence from the rap.
1. KENDRICK LAMAR:
As one of the most referenced rappers of our generation, Kendrick Lamar’s absence seems to be one of the surprising because we all know what damage Kung Fu Kenny can do with the microphone. Although Kendrick leads a very low profile lifestyle as he nearly never appears in public events, has a very low social media usage and interaction with fans and the last time he released a personal studio album was in 2017 in “DAMN.”, fans anticipation of Kendrick Lamar music release hasn’t reduced any bit, if it has done anything, it has only heightened the expectation of it although Kendrick or his record label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) hasn’t given any lead yet as to when the rapper’s next body of work will be.
Kendrick Lamar who always has tricks up his sleeves chose to surprise fans by deleting all his Instagram posts and releasing three series of pictures with the tag or caption pg-lang.com on it. He also did the same via his Twitter account. With the official statement from the website reading: “pgLang is multilingual . . . because we have to use languages to get the point of our stories across”. Whatever Kendrick has in store in terms of music release isn’t sure yet but we keep our fingers crossed.
2. BIG SEAN:
Sean Don as he often calls himself is one of the best rappers when it comes to being witty and using puns in his rap lyrics, but also like his counterpart the last time he released an album was on the 3rd of February, 2017 and his joint mixtape with producer Metro Boomin on the December of the same year. 2019 at a time looked like a year Big Sean would give us an album for real with rumors spreading far and wide of an album already in the work but just like the year following his last album, 2018, 2019 failed to produce any Big Sean’s album although he released he did release three singles in 2019 namely: “Single Again”, “Overtime” and “Bezerk” with the latter releasing date falling on August of 2019 making fans assumption of an album from the rapper resurrect once more.
3. NICKI MINAJ:
The QUEEN of rap herself, Miss Onika is one of the most talked-about public figure of 2019 with her fashion choices, appearance at talk shows, her radio station – Queen Radio – on Apple Music or her list of features; Nicki Minaj is not one to shy from social media or news on tabloids.
Her last music album release was titled “QUEEN” and that was back in August of 2018 with her only music release ever since then being “Yikes” as mentioned earlier.
Early hours of September 5, 2019, came a very shocking news from the 36-year-old rapper, Nicki Minaj has she related in a tweet saying she wants to “retire” from music, adding the reason for her decision is to “have my family”. With this decision, I think it is only wise not to expect any album soon from the Queen of rap although she has broken her promise by releasing “Yikes” in 2020 and this has made fans to only expect an album in the nearest future with the summer of 2020 being assumed as that ‘nearest future’.
4. LIL DICKY:
Dave Burd popular know by rap moniker – Lil Dicky – broke into the rap scene with his very illustrative music videos assisted rap singles “Make That Money” and “Professional Rapper”; ever since then, he hasn’t ceased to amaze fans with his very inventful lyrics rich in fast-paced punchlines and comedy.
Unlike most rappers on this list, Lil Dicky’s last album came in 2015 with the name “Professional Rapper” which proved to be a commercial success for a debut album. Although he did release an EP by his rap alter-ego Brain in September of 2017 with name – “I’m Brain”. Although much isn’t always said about the rapper, what he has in store for 2020 musical release can only be guessed to come around Summer or August of 2020 as he has featured some new verses on his new reality TV series Dave.
5. RAE SREMMURD:
We know whenever brother-duo rap group Rae Sremmurd consisting of Swae Lee and Slim Jimmy (stylized as Jxmmi) connect on a song we know nothing but the fire emoji comes out of it. Since their last album “SR3MM” which complete the three-peat of sequel “SREMM LIFE 1&2” released on the 4th of May 2018, there have been rumors of a split from the group by the brothers, although such rumors were immediately debunked Rae Sremmurd as a group hasn’t been spotted on a song together ever since then.
With Swae Lee seemingly the successful one of the duo with a very long list of features by other musicians and releasing some good list of singles since the album, it is unclear of the duo will link up one more time to create heat for their fan base in 2020 or whether they will still choose to focus on their careers.
6. CARDI B:
The Grammy winning rapper who stormed the world with her hit single “Bodak Yellow” in 2017 and debut winning Rap Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards 61st edition in 2019 with “Invasion of Privacy”. Ever since, Cardi B hasn’t kept a low profile, for majorly right reasons though, with constant features and music release but not an album or mixtape of any kind. This has kept many fans waiting for her to drop her sophomore album as this will only go to prove that she is here to stay and defend her controversial Grammy winning album of the year award. No news has surfaced yet if she will release an entire body of work in 2020 but we can only it’s going to be this year and when it thus comes we expect nothing but excellence. Till then we keep our fingers crossed.