In his first single release since the death of his mother in 2021, Rapper G-Eazy takes a look back on his career. "Tulips & Roses" was released on Thursday with a black and white video set in Paris.
It samples the song "Blame" by Gabriels and shows G-Eazy first in bed with his reported girlfriend Janaye Noah, daughter of tennis legend Yannick Noah. The camera pans to the couple's view of the Eiffel Tower and then shows G-Eazy rapping in different locations around the city.
As the video continues and the couple heads through the streets of the city to attend a burlesque show at Nouvelle Eve, viewers see their hotel room being robbed.
G-Eazy, born Gerald Earl Gillum in Oakland, has released four studio albums since his major label debut Must Be Nice in 2012. Since releasing his 2021 album These Things Happen Too, he experienced the lost of his mother, art professor Suzanne Olmstead, who died in November 2021.
He's been on a self-imposed hiatus ever since, only releasing one song, "Angel," in tribute to her last year.
"Grief can be a difficult thing to navigate," he said in a statement last year. "It's definitely not a linear process and it comes at you in waves. There will never be enough words to describe the feeling of losing your best friend, or the desire to see them again. In a literal sense, I tried to capture that feeling of longing in the lyrics of the song."
On "Tulips and Roses," G-Eazy takes note of his accomplishments and losses, with lyrics, "Clout's a hell of a drug, I'm so off of it/My star's back shining bright, I just polished it/This [expletive]'ll get away from you if you ain't on top of it/Take too long stirring the sauce, you get lost in it/There comes a time as a man you gotta stack up/Watched it fall apart, time to pick the pieces back up/Had to get this off, someone book a studio."
Despite the single, no announcement has been made on a new album release.