Big Sean Confirms Joint Project With The Alchemist

Cop Your XXL Merch Now

Big Sean delivers slick bars, clever punchlines and even a little bit of singing on his new album, Better Me Than You. He's been gone for a minute, but now he's back to rap business. With no plan in sight to step back from the spotlight, the Detroit native confirms with XXL that he already has another project in the works with The Alchemist, who's featured on Sean's latest LP.

During a conversation for his XXL magazine digital cover that debuted today (Sept. 6), in celebration of Better Me Than You, Sean Don gives some insight on an Easter egg that appears at the end of the "Together Forever" video. The smooth track, produced by The Alchemist, closes out Sean's project, which dropped Aug. 30. In the visual, when "Together Forever" comes to an end, a new black-and-white clip emerges and finds rapping over an ominous beat built by Al.

"Balmain zipper, Don Perigon sipper/I'm poppin' my sh*t till I'm a billion richer/Who gon' hold it down, fourth down that's the kicker/Either change your mind frame or they take ya out the picture," he raps.

"That's part of a side quest I'm doing with Alchemist that me and him been locked in on,” Sean tells XXL. "So, excited about that. That's a project that me and Alchemist are working on together, so that's why that part is not on the album."

The joint project has no official release date just yet. As fans await its arrival, they can also look forward to Big Sean's new book, Go Higher: Five Practices for Purpose, Success, and Inner Peace, which hits shelves on Jan. 21, 2025.

"It's a book of free game as far as how to figure out the pieces, practices, mindsets to get to where you desire to be in your life and to where you can attract all the things that you deserve," the 36-year-old hit-making MC explains. "For some people, it's dreams, but everybody doesn't have dreams. Some people are goal-oriented. And they're kinda like a lot of things that I've learned along the way from great authors and books like Deepak Chopra, Sai Guru, Esther and Jerry Hicks. A lot of just authors and concepts and things that have had an impact on my life and I give examples of why they work."

Sean took some time out from rapping to find inner peace around 2021, after releasing What You Expect, his joint EP with Hit-Boy. Practices like meditation helped him get his mind right. He expands on that practice in his upcoming book.

"An example is like meditation, right," he shares. "So, that's something, to me, that a lot of people, I remember being in the studio with Hit-Boy, a couple other people too, and they just had the wrong idea of meditation. They're like, 'Man, I can't ever turn my brain off." That's not the point. The point is to take the time consciously out, even if it's ready to concentrate on your breathing, your mind is gonna wander, but it's when you consciously bring it back, you're literally doing something to your energy and to your just mind frame, that it just gives you the best shot at accomplishing whatever it is you're trying to do."

"And it's almost like how you feel when you hop about the shower and you just clean," Sean adds. "It do that for your mental. And so many people that I know that are like way more successful than me that do that, and it's just like no one ever really gives us the game in that sense. They kind of may say it, but never really explain like, yo, there is no right or wrong way to do it for real. It's like the fact that you take the time out for yourself. That's the main part of meditation to me."

A book plus more bars and beats with Alchemist; Big Sean is back in his bag.

Read Big Sean's' XXL Digital Cover Story Interview