July 1 is the newest date for the release of Nas’s controversial album, Nigger.

It was first slated to be released last December, then pushed back to February  to align with Black History Month, but the title of the album caused a storm of controversy that involved Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, and New York assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries called on Universal to change the album title or lose $84 million in state investments. Nas refused. About the controversy around the title of the album, which will still be released under Def Jam, Nas said:

“If Cornell West [activist and professor at Princeton University] was making an album called ‘Nigger,’ they would know he’s got something intellectual to say. To think I’m gonna say something that’s not intellectual is calling me a ‘nigger,’ and to be called a ‘nigger’ by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counter-revolutionary.”

Listen to "Be a Nigger Too" off Nigger here.