Grimes, photo by Heather Kaplan

Grimes’ relatively low profile in 2017—note we said “relatively”; she still directed and co-starred in the video for Janelle Monáe’s “Venus Fly”, collaborated with Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes, and appeared on The Con X: Covers album with HANA as Trashique—seemed to signal that Claire Boucher was hard at work on the follow-up to 2015’s Art Angels. Earlier this month, she tweeted that a new album (apparently inspired by Dark Souls III) was set to drop in the spring or fall, but now that no longer seems to be the case.

As Stereogum notes, a Redditor discovered that Boucher had edited an older Instagram post about the album’s progress to read, “welp no music any time soon after all music industry is trash.” See the updated Instagram post below.



Update: Grimes has removed the message from her Instagram posting and deleted a majority of her subsequent tweets addressing the topic.

Grimes later took to Twitter to clarify that she has no problems with her management at Roc Nation. “Actually srsly wanna say 4 those suspecting roc/ the only reason Grimes exists is roc nation continuously saving my ass from wack ppl who took advantage of my youth/ naïveté early in my career,” she tweeted.

“4 everyone who talks shit on jay z he had me come over and play him Art angels b4 it was done, alwayz encouraged and made me promise to follow my heart and never worry that roc nation wants me to be anything i’m not. the rumour they r controlling me is so opposite of realiti.”

no problems w management — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 15, 2018

actually srsly wanna say 4 those suspecting roc/ the only reason grimes exists is roc nation continuously saving my ass from wack ppl who took advantage of my youth/ naïveté early in my career- i'll stan them forever they go above and beyond 4 me every time — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

4 everyone who talks shit on jay z he had me come over and play him Art angels b4 it was done, alwayz encouraged and made me promise to follow my heart and never worry that roc nation wants me to be anything i'm not. the rumour they r controlling me is so opposite of realiti — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

Grimes assured concerned fans she was “solving it. i just have to take one last hit. it sucks, but i’d rather not make fans suffer thru more unexplained drama.” She added that “theres some srsly fucked up and crazy shit going behind the scenes in my career this whole time i’ve never spoken of to protect myself legally.”

yeah but i'm solving it. i just have to take one last hit. it sucks, but i'd rather not make fans suffer thru more unexplained drama. theres some srsly fucked up and crazy shit going behind the scenes in my career this whole time i've never spoken of to protect myself legally — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

i shouldn't have said anything publicly, im sorry. its a luxury to be an artist, the greatest luxury in earth. i won't complain again — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

Grimes also revealed the reason why she abruptly walked off stage during a 2016 concert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. “that was just a serious death threat and we didn’t catch the stalker before the show and i was suffering from health problems making it hard to eat which compounded exhaustion – just an unfortunate series of coincidences,” she explained. “it was actually rly intense fbi were involved,” she added.

no that was just a serious death threat and we didn't catch the stalker before the show and i was suffering from health problems making it hard to eat which compounded exhaustion – just an unfortunate series of coincidences — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

it was actually rly intense fbi were involved — Grimes (@Grimezsz) February 16, 2018

Whatever the issue, we wish her the best.