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3 Times a Rapper Announced Their Retirement, Then Changed Their Minds

We look back on three different hip-hop legends who announced their retirements at least once but eventually came back.

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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........

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