It's often said that Hollywood loves a sequel, and with good reason -- 29 of the top 30 highest-grossing movies of all time are either part of a film series or have sequels on the way in the next few years. (The only holdout? Titanic -- not much material left once the ship was gone.) But the movie biz isn't the only industry that benefits from double- or triple-dipping (or more!) with the same theme or title; hip-hop has long been a receptive genre for the practice, with some of the greatest rap albums of all time coming as part of a series of releases.
There are several different types of album series: the early career branding (Rae Sremmurd's SremmLife and SremmLife 2, 2 Chainz's Based on a T.R.U. Story and B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time); the non-sequential recurring theme (Fat Joe's Jealous Ones albums, Jeezy's TM101 to TM103); the mid-career run (Jay Z's Vol. 1 to Vol. 3, Gucci Mane's State vs. Radric Davis I and II); the solo album trademark (Prodigy of Mobb Deep's H.N.I.C parts 1-3, Bun B from UGK's Trill quartet); the early career callback release (Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP 2, The Game's Documentary 2); and, of course, the relatively rare career-defining series (Jay Z's Blueprint trilogy, Lil Wayne's Carter series).
And the trend of these releases isn't slowing down any time soon. Already in 2016, rappers such as Cam'ron (Purple Haze), Wiz Khalifa (Rolling Papers), Diddy (Puff Daddy and the Family's No Way Out) and, most recently, Jeezy (Trap or Die 3, the first album to be released as part of his prior mixtape series) have announced upcoming sequels due at some point in the future, with Jeezy's set to arrive Oct. 28 via Def Jam/CTE.