Best Hip-Hop Song Sequels of the Last Decade

As any music fan knows, making one good song is a difficult undertaking. Artists can find it tough to satisfy themselves with their music. Getting their peers, record labels and management to believe in the song can be a totally different beast as well. Nonetheless, when a rapper drops a quality song, there’s a certain pride that comes with completing a creative vision, along with a desire to do it again. Some artists create sequels to songs  they’ve already released as follow-ups to continue the lyrical story. Hip-hop has a lot of these songs in its history, but more to choose from in recent times. Today, XXL sheds light on some of the best hip-hop song sequels of the last decade.

Some sequels take a while to surface after the original’s release. Jay-Z and Beyoncé‘s “Part II (On the Run)” didn’t come out until 2014, and was the follow-up to their 2002 song “03 Bonnie & Clyde.” Both songs are about the Hov and Bey’s bond with each other, and the sequel is a continuation of their lives as a now-married couple.

Curren$y also dropped a sequel to a song that took years to release with “Sixteen Switches Part 2.” The sequel hit the internet in 2013, but the original song came out in 2009. Both songs are quality, so surely his fans didn’t mind the wait.

On the other side of things, there are sequels that came out soon after the original. “Purple Swag,” the 2011 single that helped kickstart Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky‘s career, came out in July of that year. The sequel, “Purple Swag: Chapter 2,” featured on his debut mixtape, Live.Love.A$AP, came out in October of 2011. Both tracks are an ode to Houston’s lean culture from a New York perspective, but the sequel features A$AP Nast and Rocky’s former friend-turned-foe SpaceGhostPurrp.

Kanye West took it a step further on his 2016 album, The Life of Pablo, on which he features the song “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” and then has its sequel as the very next track. The original track finds ’Ye rapping about his personal relationships, both earthly and spiritual, while “Pt. 2” is a track that features a sample of Desiigner‘s hit song “Panda” and Kanye delivering rhymes about his family life, from his parent’s divorce and onward.

Check out the list below and find your favorite hip-hop song sequel over the last decade below.