In another clip taken from his interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings, Jay-Z revealed what it would take for him to hop in the studio again.
The multimedia mogul was questioned whether he would ever make new music and admitted that he already used the word "retirement" only to go back on it later. "I'll say I wanna make music, but it has to be something important," he shared. "I don’t wanna just make a bunch of tunes. That’s not gonna serve me. It won’t feed me, first of all. ... I have to be saying something important. It has to mean something, you know? It has to mean something to a larger society."
He highlighted his 2017 album 4:44, his most recent solo record, as an example of the material that could convince him to make new music. "4:44, for example, was a personal story, but the amount of vulnerability in there allowed for a lot of people to explore the space," he said.
The last full-length project from Jay-Z was the 2018 collaborative album with his wife Beyoncé, Everything Is Love. It's not like he hasn't been dropping verses in the years since, though, as he has shown up on tracks from the likes of Jay Electronica, DJ Khaled, Drake, Kid Cudi, and the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
Hov famously announced his retirement in 2003, but it didn't last long because he released a total of five solo albums in the years that followed. In a 2022 interview with Kevin Hart, he broached the subject of retirement and suggested that it's not on the cards for him.
“Nah, I tried that,” Jay said. “I don’t know what happens next. I’m not actively making music or making an album or have plans to make an album, but I never want to say that I’m retired. It’s a gift, so who am I to shut it off? And it may have a different form or interpretation. Maybe it’s not an album, maybe it is. I have no idea, but I’m just going to leave it open.”
