Despite focusing the latter part of his career on acting and other media ventures, ATL rapper Ludacris insists that his music days aren’t over — a suggestion many fans and commentators have lodged online.

“[It’s] definitely not dead, not at all,” Ludacris said while speaking with The Shade Room at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday (August 27). “I’m just taking my time putting

out some more music.”

Despite having released just two full-length albums since the turn of the decade (2010’s Battle Of The Sexes and 2015’s Ludaversal), Ludacris maintains that music is still number one for him.

“When you get to the ninth album stage and you’ve sold over 20 million records, sometime it’s a process and you just gotta take your time with the process. It’s expected. Any artist that takes a lot of time in-between albums, you always gon’ have people that say that. But music is number one. If it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now.”

Luda dropped a video for “Vitamin D” with Ty Dolla $ign in April, which led to some speculation that he was prepping a new album, although so far details are still scarce.

He’s also been keeping busy playing Tej Parker in The Fast And The Furious franchise — the most recent eighth installment of which grossed $1.2 billion worldwide.