Jay-Z Officially Announces New LP for November

“It was the worst retirement in history,” Jay told Entertainment Weekly. “Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good.”

“It was the worst retirement in history,” Jay told Entertainment Weekly. “Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good.”

Since Jay’s 2003 retirement he has released two LPs, Best of Both Worlds 2 with R.Kelly and Collision Course with Linkin Park, two DVDs and six performancing including the Fade To Black tour and Reasonable Doubt 10 Yr Anniversary Concert. Plus several guest spots on releases from Rick Ross, Kanye and Beyonce. Fumbling around indeed.

Jay announced the LP, Kingdom Come, will reportedly be released November 14th [around the same time as Nas' Hip Hop is Dead !!], and will be “more in the vein of The Black Album than The Blueprint,” Jay said. “I’ve been experimenting with things, different types of music.”

According to Vibe Magazine, “The title track from the album is based on a 1996 issue of the Superman comic book, where he comes out of retirement to save the world. ‘Take off the blazer / Loosen up the tie / Step inside the booth / Superman is alive,’ Jay raps on the track.”

“If I wake up one day and the best material has passed me by – and that’s going to happen,” Jay said, “then it’s time to move on. I’ve said what I wanted to say.”

The first single, Show Me What You Got, is set to come out in October with the video directed by F. Gary Gray [Friday, Italian Job] and not Hype Williams as previously reported. Williams is still set to do one of the singles off Kingdom Come.
The move back to the mic may also have been contributed by the decline in sales for Def Jam, of which Jay took over presidency in 2004. He’s definitely proving to be better marketing himself than other Def Jam artists, several considering leaving the label for that reason [Method Man, NORE].

Rumoured to provide production on Kingdom Come are Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Just Blaze, Kanye, Timbaland and Dr Dre with the inclusion of Coldplay’s Chris Martin to appear somewhere to produce also. Also slated to make an appearance is Eminem, Young Jeezy and Nas.
Also coming up is Jay’s international tour, including Oz, and the MTV documentary, Diary of Jay-Z: Water of Life, to air Nov 24th.