Hip-Hop Heads are less than a month out from Royce 5’9’s The Allegory album. The February 21 Heaven Studios/eOne album will feature Benny The Butcher, Kxng Crooked, Vince Staples, Conway The Machine, DJ Premier, and Oswin Benjamin, among others.

Dating back to late 2019, Nickel Nine has released two video singles. “Black Savage,” featuring T.I., CyHi The Prynce, Sy Ari Da Kid, and White Gold challenged a label often used in the media. Meanwhile, this month’s video to “Overcomer” used Tekashi 6ix9ine’s career as its own allegory to so much that’s wrong in the Rap game. That song’s lyrics also issued a stern warning to Royce’s former Shady Records label-mate Yelawolf.

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Now, 5’9 drops his third single, “I Don’t Age.” Like the rest of the album, the track is self-produced, right as Royce has a heavy presence behind the mic and the boards on Eminem’s Music To Be Murdered By. The song is about how Royce 5’9 continues to get better. Since “Boom,” he was an explosive MC. However, 2018’s Book Of Ryan and the several songs released after shows that in his forties, this 20-plus-year-veteran is only sharpening his weapons of microphone destruction.

After a chorus that alludes to 2018’s “C*caine,” Nickel Nine spits, “Dollar short from acquirin’ no change / Started out with no shame, to ridin’ ’round in Mulsanne / Tolerance high, feel no pain / Cotton-mouth with guys who got the code names / I remember nodding’ out, too hot, just watchin’ Soul Train / Now I’m yachtin’ out the boat-brain / Hunnid thousand dollar gold chain / Wife done got too pricey for a Cadillac / Too icy to be fightin’, too godly for a battle rap / Too nice to be in cyphers, too deep for moderation / Too free for exoneration, seekin’ validation / Young, Black, receiving salutations.”

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In the second verse of the song (which clocks in at less than three minutes), the Detroit, Michigan veteran raps, “I’m too Shady to be neutral, these artists try to divide us / If I go Kendrick Lamar, the world gon’ watch the ‘Control’ change / I’m way too vicious to ask for my respect / I’m way too mission for the dissin’, man, listen / Even mindin’ my business, I deal with entire sets / Always on time to collect, like the IRS.”

The third verse keeps thing constantly elevating. “Do not address me as second, I’m the best / You ni**as always sleepin’, I’d rather stay woke / They say you are what you eat, but I never ate G.O.A.T / I went from straight-poor to shoppin’ malls and Wraiths blowin’ gray smoke / Dialed in like conference calls, strapped up like Waco / Playin’ Hov, ‘Friend Or Foe’ / Lost friends like Ross and Rachel in the road / Big bro was a criminal, give you L’s, gimme O’s / The only thing that look good on paper to me is Benji’s, h*e / My sobriety’s been more faithful to me than these h*es / Never compromisin’ my intellect for the Internet / Just send these goals in the rose / How the f*ck this nickel-ninin’, yes-man When 24/7, I stay in the ‘know’ / ‘Fore I hold a grudge, I take a flight to Paris / ‘Fore I spill blood, I drink a pint of theirs / I don’t age.”

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New music by Royce is presently on the official AFH Playlist.

Press photograph by Tremaine Edwards provided by eOne.