‘Watch The Throne 2’ is on the Way, According to One Half of the Throne

After a summer of blockbuster albums (often to diminishing returns), Kanye West and Jay-Z are supposedly adding to the release schedule. On Saturday, Kanye West took to Twitter to announce: “throne2 coming soon.” However, it is unclear if both halves of the duo got the memo.

throne2 coming soon

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 8, 2018

The succinct and mysterious announcement didn’t give any additional context or details of Jay’s potential involvement. Not long ago, Kanye proclaimed there wouldn’t be a follow-up to the seminal album with his longtime mentor. “There will never be a Watch The Throne 2,” Ye said at the 2016 Seattle stop of the Saint Pablo tour. “You know why, because that’s the reason why I wasn’t on the song [“Pop Style”]. I wasn’t on this song, because of Hov.”

Since then, Jay has collaborated with Drake on Scorpion’s “Talk Up,” while Yeezy is fending off multiple shots a week from the Toronto rapper. Both rappers have released albums this year; Kanye’s ye was released at the beginning of June, and Jay-Z’s surprise collaborative album with Beyoncé, Everything Is Love, dropped in June.

A sequel to the biggest event album in hip-hop history makes sense in a year where Ye and Jay’s successors — Drake and Travis Scott — critically and commercially usurped their idols. Kanye sensed which way the wind was blowing as far back as 2013’s OVO Fest when he admitted, “Me and Hov would’ve never made Watch The Throne if this nigga [Drake] wasn’t putting pressure on us like that.” If nothing else, a return from The Throne would provide a momentary respite from the Drake industrial complex and likely include an update to “New Day” — an open letter in song form to their hypothetical sons — now that both Jay and Kanye have children.

However, it’s unclear if Jay and Kanye are even in contact. In an interview with Charlamagne released in May, Kanye indicated that the two were not speaking after a series of outbursts on his Saint Pablo tour and Jay addressed Kanye on his last solo album, 4:44. The two were certainly not working on the album this weekend: Jay was in Europe, while Kanye flew from the PornHub Awards in Los Angeles to New York, where he was in the studio with controversial SoundCloud rapper 6ix9ine.

A rep for West did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Roc Nation declined to comment on Jay-Z’s involvement with Watch The Throne 2.