For the first time in nearly 17 years, Diddy is gearing up to release a brand new solo album. On Tuesday (August 22), the 53-year-old rapper-songwriter-mogul-actor put out a trailer for his upcoming LP The Love Album: Off the Grid. The project marks his first studio album since Press Play in 2006, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and included appearances from Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, Nas, Brandy, Timbaland, Christina Aguilera, Big Boi of OutKast, and more.
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Diddy started Tuesday’s trailer by asking himself if he was “ever going to love again?” which is seemingly the motivation for many of the cuts on the album. Soon after, multiple different snippets from songs on the track list played, including one where he touches on his headspace while making The Love Album.
Sometimes you gotta go through the dark to manifest
Sometimes you gotta smile through the agony and the stress
My feet ain’t been on the ground, I’m flyin’ and landin’ jets
The world will never get another me, I ain’t did shit if God ain’t impressed
As the trailer continued, it showed tons of sneak peek footage of Diddy in the studio with presumed feature guests for the LP, such as Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Busta Rhymes, Summer Walker, Swae Lee, 21 Savage, Mary J. Blige, French Montana, Teyana Taylor, Babyface, and more. In fact, Diddy included a few scenes that show him instructing Bieber and Swae Lee on how to record their portions.
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“I don’t make an algorithm, I make a feeling,” Diddy said as the narrator of the 4-minute trailer. “I want to give them something they can sing. People said, ‘Do you want streams?’ I said, ‘I want souls.'”
Midway through the video, Diddy is shown taking a trip to an undisclosed island to truly concentrate on finishing the album, as he explains that he “had to go off the grid in order to really lock in.”
“This is my second mountain,” he said. “I want to make music. Music is my foundation, it’s my hustle, it’s my foundation, it’s my vibration.”
As the trailer came to a close, Diddy revealed that the release date for The Love Album: Off the Grid is September 15, which is less than a month away.
In the last year leading up to the album, Diddy has put out a handful of singles including hits like “Gotta Move On” with Bryson Tiller, “Sex in the Porsche” with PARTYNEXTDOOR, and “Act Bad” with City Girls. However, it’s unclear which of these, if any, will land on the official track list, which has yet to be confirmed.
Watch the new trailer for The Love Album: Off the Grid below.
Photo by: Rich Polk/NBC
