Jay Rock fans are eagerly awaiting the release of his new album, but while they wait he’s taken an early-2000s JAY-Z track and fired it into the 2020s with a powerful new freestyle.
Recently stopping by Justin Credible’s show on L.A.’s Power 106, the TDE rap titan showed that he hasn’t lost a step by freestyling over “The Watcher 2,” a 2002 Jigga track produced by Dr. Dre and Scott Storch.
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“N-ggas saying they street, never bleed the concrete/ Acting like the stress never got to Ghandi,” Jay Rock spits. “What if Martin Luther King had him a tommy? Malcom X said, ‘Fuck it,’ hit him a side street/ Bent him a couple corners and got him a side piece/ Then sat up in a penthouse something like five weeks/ And feds still tapping the phone?/ Once again, it’s on.”
You can check out the whole performance below:
Jay Rock began going public with promises of a new album, his first since 2018’s Redemption, this past summer. He told Bootleg Kev that “the new album is great … [I]t’s just about trying to make good quality music. Like I said, I’m tryna do an album like my last one where you ain’t gotta skip shit. No skips.”
TDE founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith first shared news of a new Jay Rock project several months prior. In March 2023, he revealed the label’s release lineup for the year ahead, naming every artist he expects to drop a new project.
“Reason , rayvaughn , doechii , Q , jay rock , zac and a compilation,” he wrote. “if everybody do their part … when they turn them in I will release em ..”
The first single from Jay Rock’s upcoming project, a song entitled “Eastside,” was released in late June.
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Jay Rock’s last album, Redemption, was released in 2018 and debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart with 31,417 total album-equivalent units sold in its first week. Guest appearances came from Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Future,SZA, Jeremih and others, with “King’s Dead” winning a Grammy for Best Rap Performance.
