Fab’s playing Santa this year

Fabolous‘ last album was released in 2009, and, considering the fact that Loso’s Way 2 certainly won’t see a department store shelf in 2013, summer 2014 will make 5 years since the last time the Brooklyn-bred street rap aficionado released an LP; an anniversary he’s very much in danger of achieving. His attempts to keep his name and talents buzzing through his There Is No Competition and Soul Tape mixtape series were once promising, but have proved futile in recent years, and the disproportionate ratio of his presence in the studio, compared to his presence on social media have left most fans and critics hopeless that the glory days, that involved rap anthems such as “Breathe”, “Make Me Better”, and “Can’t Deny It”, will ever return.

After teasing about it for weeks, today Fabolous officially confirmed the third installment of his Soul Tape trilogy, Soul Tape 3, will be released this coming Christmas. The previous two installments featured decent showings from Fabolous, who made it a point to use more soulful, introspective instrumentals as he compiled the music for these mixtapes. “Transformation” may be the single best example of Fabolous’ Soul Tape work, which was one of the better performances from Loso in recent memory. While there’s no tracklist or official single from the tape as of yet, Christmas leaves Fabolous just over 2 weeks to deliver this project to the masses, so stay tuned.

-Khari Nixon (@KingVanGogh)