Nas has sparked both excitement and confusion among his fans after posting a cryptic teaser on Instagram.
The Queensbridge rap legend quietly cleared his IG page on Wednesday (July 12) before uploading a brief and mysterious video of a storm, sans a caption.
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The 10-second clip contains little more than rainfall and thunder sounds, along with flashing lightning that briefly illuminates the cloudy sky to reveal an image of Nas’ giant “N” logo.
With the post lacking any sort of explanation, fans were left to speculate what it might mean — and many seem to think a new Nas album is on the horizon.
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“Please tell me another album coming?!?!!” one fan excitedly wrote in the comments section, while another predicted: “Escobar Season begins.”
Hit-Boy, the Grammy-winning producer behind Nas’ last four albums, seemingly hinted that he may be involved in whatever’s coming by commenting: “dark mode” and leaving three fire emojis.
Fans have good reason to believe a new Nas album might be around the corner after it was recently reported that a fourth installment in his acclaimed King’s Disease series is in the works.
The cat was let out of the bag in 50 Cent’s interview with Billboard in February, in which he discussed his impending musical comeback, ever-expanding multimedia empire and the 20th anniversary of his blockbuster debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’, among other topics.
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The publication noted that in addition to working on a new solo album with Eminem and Dr. Dre, the G-Unit mogul is set to make a rare appearance on Nas’ forthcoming King’s Disease 4 LP.
If so, it would mark the Queens, New York natives’ first collaboration in over two decades following “Too Hot” and “Who U Rep With” from 50’s 2002 mixtape Guess Who’s Back?
Nas added fuel to the fire last month when he revealed that he’s back in the studio and currently in a “creative growth spurt.”
“I’m in one of these creative growth spurts,” he told Vanity Fair. “It’s something that I’m really excited about, and it surprises me — but I’m not too, too surprised because I was also waiting for the day that I felt like this again, and I knew it would come.”
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When asked about his King’s Disease series with Hit-Boy and if he plans to continue adding to it, he shared that he really enjoys the “constant flow” of music and doesn’t “wanna stop it once it’s flowing the way it’s flowing.”
“It feels very free, and I just wanna see what happens as I stick to it,” he explained. “And I’ve been sticking to it, and it’s been my whole life now. Like, if I’m recording, I don’t do anything else, really. It hasn’t been this way for me for probably 20 years.
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“I think that’s what I think today, maybe tomorrow I think about, well, actually accurately, seven years, or since I’ve been really in the studio, but when it comes in my head now, it’s been that long — 20 years.”
That momentum has certainly been evident since the release of King’s Disease III last November, with Nas recently making two blockbuster cameos on Metro Boomin’sAcross the Spider-Verse cut “Nas Morales” and his “On My Soul” collaboration with Tobe Nwigwe and Jacob Banks, from the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts soundtrack.
