Last night, Lupe Fiasco dropped his latest song: “N.E.R.D.”, a freestyle over the beat to J. Cole’s recent “Everybody Dies” beat. While many rejoiced over another new track from an artist who’s been dropping music less and less frequently, Lupe once again managed to let people down with his music, this time through anti-Semitic lyrics, which resulted in the track being briefly taken down for breaching hate speech rules.

“Artists getting robbed for their publishing / by dirty Jewish execs who think it’s alms for the covenant”

Taking a shot at former Atlantic Records head Lyor Coher, Lupe went on to state on twitter that Jewish record execs are “dirty as hell” and “Its some upright moral Jewish execs in this biz and some low down dirty awful motherfuckers that would sell they mother into slavery”. The tweets have since been deleted, and Lupe’s twitter account is now private.

Lupe’s latest full-length project, Tetsuo & Youth, was an incredible album, with all the dense wordplay, intricate lyricism, and pertinent messages that fans expected from the Chicago rapper. Even his latest EP, Pharaoh Height, was well-received. But since then, Lupe’s been putting out increasingly uninteresting music with tracks like “Pick Up the Phone” and “Made in the USA”.

On top of that, after announcing three final albums –  Drogas Lite, Drogas, and SKULLS – which were all supposed to drop before the end of 2016, Lupe had frustratingly pushed back the date of all three until 2017 at the earliest. Now, following criticism for lyrics in “N.E.R.D.”, Lupe has decided to scrap everything and quit.

This is just another in a long line of irresponsible moves by the revered artist, but while it’s undoubtedly going to cost him a lot of fans, a history of classic albums like Liquor & Food and The Cool mean that he’s still going to keep a loyal core group, no matter what he does. Hopefully Lupe figures things out, apologises, and finds some way to make good on a lot of broken promises. He’s far from the first artist to threaten retirement, so take his statements with a grain of salt.