Cordae says he put his ‘best foot forward thus far’ on upcoming album, ‘The Crossroads’

Cordae is gearing for the release of his upcoming album, The Crossroads. It will be his third studio album, following From A Bird’s Eye View, which came out in 2022. Cordae says the hiatus was simply due to needing the “time to just live life, assess life” and grow.

“I wanted to get better, like, as a songwriter, as a rapper. I wanted my verses to be better. I wanted my storytelling to be better. I wanted my beat selection and taste in beat selection to get better, and that requires work and time, so I feel like this is my best foot forward thus far,” he tells Billboard News.

“I think it’s ready. I think I’m better than I’ve ever been as an artist,” he says.

The Crossroads arrives on digital platforms Friday. Cordae explains the title stems from a point in his life when he “felt like I was at a crossroads in my life.”

“It was like life or death. … If I go right, everything is gonna be perfect and yay, life is great, and if I go left, all life is horrible,” Cordae recalls, noting he eventually “realized that one decision doesn’t hold that much weight. It’s a culmination of decisions.”

He says he’s not at all concerned with how the album performs in its first week.

In a post on X, he wrote, “N***** said my last project first week numbers wasn’t good and I ended up doing a sold out headline world tour.”