The title of Tory Lanez’s Made You Think I Was Gone …But is clearly a message to the MC’s detractors. Though Lanez remains incarcerated following his conviction from an incident that left fellow MC Megan Thee Stallion shot in the feet, at the time of Made You Think I Was Gone …But’s July 2026 release, the Umbrellas—the name for diehard Lanez fans—were still living off Lanez’s April LOL : SLUTTY BASS project. But in case you didn’t hear him, here’s another 23 bangers for your head top. Made You Think I Was Gone …But is split into two “discs”—collections of rap and R&B few people besides Lanez, one of Black music’s truly ambidextrous purveyors, could deliver. Freedom, and Lanez’s vision of it, plays as the recurring theme across the rap-centered “disc 1.” “Clearly, I’m sitting inside of the celly, but manifestin’ is the way/But I ain’t just manifestin’ when I tell you I’ll be home any day,” he raps on “Revenge of Fargo”. “The way I keep doing this number one shit from the cell/I know that it’s irkin’ em, yeah,” goes “Crodie from the 9/Guy in My City”. The vibe shift comes on “disc 2,” an R&B collection reminiscent of Lanez’s Chixtape series, wherein the Toronto-hailing vocalist sings mostly songs of heartbreak—understandable considering his location at the time of creation—but with an MC’s sensibility. “The Over Song,” “Swangin’,” and “Streets Want You Back” are all about reckoning with failed relationships. Songs like “Favorite Eater,” “Kody,” and “Dancers Remorse (Sin City)” are subject to another common pastime of the incarcerated: thinking about what people are getting up to on the outside. On the whole, Made You Think I Was Gone …But is but another testament to Lanez’s songwriting talent, affirming that you can lock away his body, but you can’t contain his studio wizardry.