Jay-Z talked about his return to music in a interview with Gayle King and according to him, he will only release new music if it is a important message that he feels needs to be put out in the public.

He said, “I already [used the word ‘retirement’], I can’t do that ever again. I’ll say I wanna make music, but it has to be something important.”

He added, “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 finished by saying, “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.”