Mick Jenkins releases his latest album The Patience via RBC Records/BMG. Previously, the rapper has teased out the project with singles like “Smoke Break-Dance” and “Guapanese,” along with notable features, from Benny The Butcher, Freddie Gibbs, Vic Mensa and JID. The Patience will be made available for physical releases on Vinyl & CD later this fall on November 10th.
His first album since 2021’s Elephant in the Room, this body of work reflects Jenkins’ status as a young veteran in his craft. First breaking out at age 23 with his 2014 mixtape The Water[s], he has established himself as one of the most dexterous contemporary lyricists over the course of 3 full length albums and 4 EPs since that mixtape’s release. The Patience is the sound of an artist that is still young and at the full height of their artistic powers, wizened by the years spent grinding to reach this point, still eager to prove their continued vitality. The result is Jenkins’ most urgent artistic statement since his breakthrough. Noted by The Wire in an early review, “The Patience is a reflective yet raging record that in every moment proves that rap remains an art form waiting to be reinvigorated by anyone able to tap its true revolutionary possibility. Great to have him back and firing on all cylinders.”
Speaking on the album Mick says, “I honestly feel like my career is only just starting now! Everything that came before The Patience was a different me. Look, before it felt like I was chopping onions for 5 hours a day, but now my sound is at Michelin star level and I’m sitting on the top of the totem pole. Once you plant a seed you need to spend years watering it and nurturing it. With this project I feel like all that patience is finally starting to pay off… It’s a beautiful feeling.”
Through the process of creating The Patience, Jenkins deviated from his typically concept-driven method of making albums and experimented with a new approach entirely; something he believes has resulted in career-best music. “A lot of these new songs were made when I stopped focusing on a concept and just wrote spontaneously to the beat,” says the 32-year-old. “It gave me a new level of freedom.” And this freedom has resulted in an exhilarating looseness to Jenkins’ raps, infusing his always-barbed lyricism with a degree of free-spiritedness not seen in his catalog to date.
