Logic is set to release a compilation called YS Collection Vol. 1 this Friday, June 25 via Def Jam Recordings. It’s his first official release since announcing his “retirement” in July 2020, led by a single called “Intro” that he released last Friday, June 18.

The rapper released a statement on the upcoming project. He announced, “What’s up guys? It’s Logic. I’m here to tell you that so many of your favorite songs from my early mixtapes are now going to be available this Friday. I’m releasing a compilation album of a lot of your favorite songs from back in the day. It’s called The Young Sinatra Collection, Volume One.”

As a disclaimer, he continued, “There is quite a few songs that I couldn’t clear, just because that’s why I never tried to do this before. I’ve spent the better half of a year plus trying to bring you these songs, because for the last ten years, or at least since No Pressure dropped, it’s been ‘We need the mixtapes on iTunes,’ ‘We need the mixtapes on Spotify,’ ‘We need the mixtapes, we need the mixtapes,’ and I was always like ‘It’s basically impossible, you know what I mean?’ Because I’m rapping on somebody else’s beats that already existed like A Tribe Called Quest, or I’m sampling this or I’m sampling that, and I’m doing this and I’m doing that, and it’s just like so hard to do, but we actually pulled it off. I think we really did a good job at getting all the ones that we could. There were a few that just utterly couldn’t clear, which is a bummer, but I mean, in the grand scheme, it’s still so many of the songs that you guys wanted – that I want you to have, and I’m beyond excited.”

The album isn’t really a grand return from retirement since it’s mostly archival recordings, but he’s calling it a “return to form.” He’s also rephrasing what he meant by “retirement” to mean only releasing music leisurely from now on. In a written statement, Logic adds, “This album is a return to form for me. It is a culmination of all the things I’ve learned mentally, spiritually and technically. And most important it is an album that is strictly for fans of hip-hop music. It’s an album I’d been planning for years and what I believe to be the perfect farewell.” 

His official ‘retirement’ didn’t last a full year and he continued releasing music throughout it over Twitch, as well as through two collaborative singles with Madlib as MadGic. More majorly, fans speculate that he’s the rapper/producer that released a project called Planetory Destruction under the Doctor Destruction alias in January 2021 in tribute to the late MF DOOM.

“Intro” is the one newly-recorded song on the compilation, about how far Logic has come since he started rapping at 19 years old, featuring bars that he wrote back then over a jazzy beat. “My name is Logic, I wrote this record at nineteen/And now at thirty-one, I read pages from my old rhymebook/Thinkin’ ’bout the time that it took to get here,” he sings. Later, he closes the track, “Yo, I been to hell and back, motherfuck a platinum plaque/None of that, it don’t mean shit if your family ain’t got your back/I’m unretired, yeah, I’m back, that’s a fact, that’s that.”

Photo credit: Boston Lynn Schulz