Tonight at midnight ET (June 16), Gunna will release his fourth studio album A Gift and a Curse.
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Making the announcement on Wednesday (June 15), A Gift and a Curse will be Gunna’s first full-length release since January 2022, when his DS4Ever LP became his second consecutive album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
A few months after his DS4Ever triumph, though, Gunna was arrested in May 2022 along with Young Thug and other members of their Young Stoner Life record label. Hit with several charges relating to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in Fulton County, Georgia, the imprint saw all of their careers halted in the blink of an eye.
While Thug currently awaits trial on eight different counts, Gunna and a few other YSL signees were able to enter guilty pleas and earn their freedom. However, when he was released with probation last December, Gunna faced a swarm of backlash for submitting an Alford plea to the court, where he confirmed that YSL is a street gang.
Even though he and his legal team insisted that his plea could not be used against any of his label-mates, especially Young Thug, some hip-hop fans felt that Gunna turned his back on his mentor Thug and the label that jumpstarted his career. After being absent from releasing music for over a year, though, the 30-year-old emcee addressed some of these claims in his latest comeback single “Bread & Butter,” which arrived on June 2.
Serving as the promotional single for A Gift and a Curse, “Bread & Butter” is a forceful return to form for Gunna, which sees him reconnect with his beloved producer Turbo, who he frequently collaborated with before his arrest.
Due to the circumstances of his release from behind bars, some of Gunna’s favorite collaborators have distanced themselves from him, most notably Lil Durk and Lil Baby. So, with names that are usually found on his albums out of the picture, it remains to be seen which fellow rappers will make guest appearances on Gift and a Curse, if any.
But, as evident in “Bread & Butter,” Gunna is capable of holding his own by himself musically, which could be key for him in this bizarre new chapter of his career.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
