Tory Lanez just announced a new double album titled “MADE YOU THINK I WAS GONE …BUT” dropping Friday, July 17 — and he’s doing it straight from a California prison cell. The Canadian rapper is staying productive despite serving a 10-year prison sentence for assaulting fellow artist Megan Thee Stallion, and fans are eating up the audacity of it all.
The album announcement follows two unreleased tracks that recently hit the internet being confirmed as authentic. The project features 23 tracks total — 11 rap songs on Disc One and 12 R&B tracks on Disc Two. The new project will feature two discs with him rapping in one and focusing on R&B in the other. It’s a full-fledged double album with no guest features, which is wild considering where he’s recording from.
The album artwork is particularly striking. The album artwork appears to reference the brutal prison attack Tory says he survived last year. That’s a real reference too — Lanez was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate Santino Casio on May 12, 2025, in his back, torso, head, and face. Peterson was hospitalized following the incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head. This wasn’t some minor prison scrap either — the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. Following that incident, Lanez filed a $100 million federal civil rights lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections.
Context is everything here. Lanez was found guilty of shooting Megan in the foot in July 2020 as they left a party at the home of celebrity Kylie Jenner. The conviction was historic — a three-judge panel upheld his conviction and 10-year prison sentence for the 2020 roadside shooting that landed Megan Thee Stallion in the hospital after his appeal was filed. At trial, jurors heard testimony that Peterson pointed a handgun at Megan’s feet and fired five rounds while saying, “Dance, bitch.” Megan suffered gunshot wounds to both of her feet and required emergency surgery. The case divided hip-hop, especially after Drake, in one of his songs, implied that Megan lied about being shot.
What’s remarkable — and honestly chilling — is how Lanez keeps operating musically despite everything. He launched his Prison Tapes series, giving listeners music created from behind bars, and later followed with Peterson in 2025, another album assembled during his incarceration. Now he’s doing a full double album. Lanez says he records vocals through prison phone calls before engineers mix and master the tracks. The logistics alone are insane.
The artwork and tracklist also include a cryptic statement that appears to reflect Lanez’s current mindset: “When the world turns your back on you, you turn your back on the world”. That’s the whole vibe right there. He’s leaning into the prison narrative, the stabbing, the conviction — turning his legal chaos into art. It’s defiant. It’s unapologetic. And it’s exactly what you’d expect from an artist who refused to accept the verdict and continues fighting it.
For the culture, this is a moment. Lanez is executing the same playbook as rappers like Kodak Black, Gucci Mane, and Lil Wayne before him — artists who didn’t let the system silence their voice. Whether you think he’s guilty or innocent, whether you support him or stand with Megan Thee Stallion, Tory Lanez is proving that a prison bid doesn’t have to be the end of your relevance. His die-hard fanbase is excited. His critics are watching. And on Friday, both camps are getting 23 new songs to debate over.
The 16BARS take: Tory Lanez dropping a 23-song double album from prison isn’t a comeback — it’s a statement. He’s saying no conviction, no stabbing, no lawsuit can kill his output. Whether that makes him a visionary or delusional depends on which side of the Megan Thee Stallion case you land.
