Fetty Wap is reintroducing himself. On Monday, the Grammy-nominated rapper announced that his comeback album Zavier will release on March 27, just three months following his release from prison in January.
“I’m just happy & grateful to be back, & thankful that my fans didn’t forget about me. I’m so thankful to my family, fans and team for holding me down. This new music is a reflection of a new chapter in my life,” Fetty said in a statement. “I just want to bring back good energy & good vibes. I love y’all.”
The artist rolled out the news alongside a black-and-white trailer that sees him looking back at his time in solitude following his prison sentence and the future ahead. “When you lose the money everybody think that’s the worst part,” Fetty says in the clip. “When it get real quiet that’s when it hit different. I got so used to hearing Fetty everywhere I go, before I even knew who Zavier was. Somewhere in all that, I became a character in my own life. People really loved what I could provide for real, not who I really was.”
“When they take everything away, all you got left is the person your mama made you,” he continues before the video blooms into color. “People call me Fetty, but the people who know me call me Zavier.”
The rapper will celebrate the album’s release with a series of East Coast shows kicking off April 4 with a sold-out homecoming at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey, followed by concerts in Hartford, Connecticut; Albany, New York; and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. More dates will be announced soon.
Fetty, who pleaded guilty to a drug charge in 2022, was released on Jan. 8 from the federal prison in Minnesota, where he was serving a six-year sentence. The “Trap Queen” artist is serving the remainder of his sentence, which is due to end Nov. 8, on home confinement in New Jersey.
When asked in a Vibe interview if he lost parts of himself in prison and reclaimed any of those parts after being released, Fetty replied, “I could say that whatever I lost when I went in, it was meant to be lost, and when I came out, I left it there.” He continued, “I feel new. I feel rehabilitated, in a sense. I just have this clear mindset where it’s like nothing’s really that important. When I say that, I don’t mean like, not as far as my kids or anything like that. It’s like when you’re driving, or you’re speeding to get somewhere, you’re trying to race against time.”
Fetty added, “I promised myself one thing this time: I’m just going to take my time through life now. Just really enjoy life.”
