It seems like lifetimes ago that Kanye West first announced his The Life of Pablo follow-up album, Turbo Grafx 16. Given West's off-the-cuff style (especially on Twitter) and all that's happened in his world recently—from launching a Yeezy Season 3 collection in stores to releasing music videos for "Famous" and "Fade" to going on tour to his wife being robbed at gunpoint to endorsing Trump to allegedly suffering a breakdown—we thought the new album was all but dead. After all, the most we ever heard about it at all was a few shots of Kid Cudi in the studio with West, and that was before he and West briefly beefed before eventually making up again. Additionally, West tweeted out a photo of his laptop screen, which showed he was listening to an acoustic Sufjan Stevens song called "Death With Dignity." (How West could possibly flip that song into a hip-hop banger is beyond us—then again, the man is a genius and don't @ me about it.) All that said, apparently the album is back on after one of West's original mentors, Pete Rock, shared videos from the studio and played samples from what he says is the forthcoming album.

So, not that it was ever over, but Yeezy Season marches on. All of this is unconfirmed as of now, but we're willing to take Pete Rock's word for it, as he's a bona fide hip-hop OG. It's hard to tell if these are just raw samples or the makings of actual beats West will be rhyming over, but the good news is that they seem to be the soulful sounds that West leaned on early in his career. He's since used these kinds of samples sparingly, though he's found a way to work them in even on industrial rock-inspired projects like Yeezus.

So before we go and make claims of the "Old Kanye" being back, it's important to remember West's greatest skill might be the way he can mash-up old school soul with basically anything else. Then again, he likely wouldn't bring on Pete Rock (who last assisted West on 2010's masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) unless he was aiming at a more traditional hip-hop sound.

Where things get complicated is the alleged track list. The album name, Turbo Grafx 16, is inspired by the video game console of the same name, and the list of potential song names written down also all have to do with 80s-era video games, including Super Mario Bros. and Resident Evil. If West really has been bedridden for the past few weeks, maybe he's been kicking back and relaxing with a few old-school video games. Remember, West only started making music because he was scoring video games he had programmed while he was just 13 years old. If TG16 is about West embracing those childhood good vibes and going back to his roots, it's hard to imagine the results will disappoint.