Memphis hip-hop is poised for a major year, and Young Dolph's Paper Route Empire is poised to be key players in that movement. Dolph himself has already amassed a solid discography under his belt, having dropped off eighteen mixtapes and six studio albums since coming into the game in 2008. Many artists might simply call it a day after that much music, and a new story from Dolph's recently-scrubbed-clean Instagram page suggests he might be flirting with the idea of retirement himself.

Young Dolph retirement

"Highly considering quitting music because I wanna be with my kids 24/7," he writes, with an emphatic shrug emoji. A fair point and one that might be wholly understandable were it not for the following (confrontational) slide. "Yall n***as never touched a vacuum sealer until your rap career took off, just to look cool," he challenges. "Yall n***as ass backwards." Adding insult to injury, he punctuates his statement with the increasingly popular clown emoji.

It's unclear if there is a correlation to be made here; perhaps Dolph is growing increasingly frustrated with the more performative nature of the rap game, which in itself seems to glorify some of the bleaker aspects of his own experience. There are plenty of reasons such flagrant attempts to portray a false narrative might rankle Dolph -- and once someone finds themselves rankled past a certain threshold, one simply cannot abide to be rankled any more. Not while there are the simple joys of family living to be experienced.

Sad though we would be to see Dolph take a backseat from the game, if it would bring him peace of mind and happiness, who are we to complain? And even if he stops rapping as a solo artist, the Paper Route Empire team remains strong all the same, no doubt benefitting from his leadership qualities. In short, a man must do what a man must do.