6 Rappers Who Lied About Retiring From The Game

Rappers love to bite the hand that feeds them. The music game can be a bumpy ride, and at some point the public glare becomes too much to stomach. Retiring is definitely within their rights, but with so many people claiming to be done with music—but never actually making steps to leave the spotlight— but threatening to  walk away from music has become more of a publicity stunt, and less of a believable proclamation.

Earlier today, T.I. became the latest MC to announce that he “wants out” of the music game, because he doesn’t like the direction in which things are going. Being that he runs a record label, and is the self-proclaimed King of the South, the idea of him completely walking away seems farfetched, but we’ll humor him anyway. In honor of Tip’s unofficial announcement, here are six other rappers who said they’d walk away from the game—but never did.

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Photo: Studio Noize

Jay-Z

In 2003 Jay announced that he was done releasing music—that was until he decided to release more new music. Hov said that The Black Album would be his last, and three years later he dropped Kingdom Come. In the years since, he’s released a few more albums and launched Roc Nation. No one really believed that he’d leave rap alone anyway, the game needs him.

Bow Wow

Low record sales, and a bad album decision (aka his Face Off release with Omarion) sent Bow into an early retirement, at the tender age of 22.  Jermaine Dupri’s one-time sidekick said that his New Jack City Part 2 album would be his last, and split from his label, Columbia Records. Fast forward three years and Hip-Hop Wired  just interviewed Bow about his forthcoming album, Underrated. Nice try youngin.’

Waka Flocka Flame

Twitter was Waka Flocka Flame’s medium of choice when he decided he was done with rap. Last July the Brick Squad leader was fed up with the “fakeness” in the game, tweeting that he would “quit rap after this year.” After the announcement, Waka went back to releasing new music, and touring all over the country.

Kid Cudi

Cudi’s relationship with his career is tumultuous to say the least. In 2009 he wrote on his blog  that he was “falling back on being an artist.” He not only failed to keep his promise, but admitted to an addiction to a certain powdery substance that has been the downfall of many of his musical peers.  Maybe his frustration was just the drugs talking.

50 Cent

In what turned out to be one of the best publicity stunts in Hip-Hop (don’t argue with the facts), 50 Cent and Kanye West embroiled themselves in a rapper-vs-rapper battle to debut atop the Billboard charts. When Wests’ Graduation  ran circles around sales of 50’s Curtis album, he scrambled to come up with a reason for the defeat. Rather than wave the white flag, the Queens rapper accused Def Jam of buying copies of Ye’s album. As for that retirement, 50’s new mixtape drops next week.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj loves to play jedi mind tricks. After her sophomore album failed to match the first week sales of her Pink Friday debut, the Young Money Barbie deleted her Twitter page and played around with the idea of retiring. One week later her temper tantrum wore off, she re-joined the social networking site, and is still busy promoting Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. Looks like it was all just a publicity stunt.