S. Samuel
G-Unit's Lloyd Banks has shared his disinterest rocking the microphone into his 40's, much like his rap predecessors Jay-Z and Diddy.
According to the “Punch Line King,” his love for hip-hop will likely diminish with age.
“I’m a fan of music. I keep a lot of my scraps, you know what I’m saying? I’ll save them for my kids or my grandkids. I’m just in love with the process of making music. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. But, then again, I don’t see myself doing it in my 40’s. Well, I won’t say that I’ll ever stop recording music. But, I don’t think I’m going to have to want for certain things. Right now, this is my girlfriend. Hip-Hop is my girlfriend, hip-hop is my kid. Hip-Hop fills the void of the things that I don’t have. I pay it 101% attention. I don’t think I could be as good a father, or as good a husband or anything like that — the way I am as an artist — until I’m not an artist anymore.” (Baller Status)
Last year, Lil Wayne said owning a sports team would be his ideal endeavor after exiting the hip-hop limelight.
“I always said I ain’t wanna do this no more after 35, I ain’t wanna do it no more,” Wayne revealed in an interview with radio personality Tim Westwood. “So any time before 30 and 35, I might give it up. [But now] I gotta work as hard as I can so I ain’t gotta look back. [When I retire, I’ll] do something else, I’m gonna retire from this and probably jump into some ownership of some sports team or you know, I’m very heavy into sports. Any sport. [I’d want ownership] of the team. It doesn’t matter, it could be basketball, it could be baseball, of course it wouldn’t be baseball, there’s too much money to own that, but it could be basketball or football, it wouldn’t matter. I could buy into a baseball team with someone.” (Tim Westwood TV)
Rap legend Rakim previously spoke with SOHH about when rappers should call it quits and retire.
“Yeah, I think what’s happening is, rappers are becoming, especially for people that love a rapper, rap and hip-hop come to party,” Rakim explained. “You can’t just put it down. It’s not like sports where you know, you lose a step. You can lose skills in rapping of course, but it’s a little different man and I think sitting back and watching the R&B genre, you got, at any awards show and you see brothers like Al Green come out and tear it down. It’s longevity in R&B and I think if it’s done right, to an extent, I think we can have a little longer gevity in hip-hop, it don’t just have to be a young music anymore. You got people like myself, I’m in my 40’s now, early, early early like real early. I just touched 40, but still, I don’t plan on stop listening to rap anytime soon and I don’t plan to stop rhyming no time soon and it’s that tug-of-war with the fans.” (SOHH)
More recently, Dr. Dre said his upcoming Detox album would likely be the last time he is heard rapping.
“I don’t ever see myself retiring totally from music, because I have a genuine love and passion for it,” he said. “But as far as me going into the mic booth, that sh*t is over. I’m always going to talent scout and try to find new artists to work with. But, yeah, that’s it. I don’t see myself doing it the way I’m doing it now. I’m in the studio at least five or six days a week for 16, 18 hours. I think I’m going to back off a little bit and spend some time with the family.” (XXL Mag)
Check out Styles P speaking on hip-hop retirement below:
