This Is Why Everyone Thinks Jay Z Is Dropping An Album Today

Tidal has been peppering America with cryptic billboards and advertisements that read simply, "4:44." The mysterious ads aren't just giving subway riders something to think about, either, because NME reports that 4:44 ads are also appearing on hip-hop news sites like Complex, 2DopeBoyz, and The Undefeated, using the same peachy-pink hue and simple font. Of course, fans are putting together the clues and speculating that it's all leading up to a brand-new Jay Z album.

Spin adds that the ads don't actually link out to anything. They're just images, so it's doubly mysterious. But Spin's sleuths did some digging into the images' source codes (as one does) to find that the 4:44 images are affiliated with Tidal: "tidal-444" shows up in the behind-the-scenes HTML gibberish of Complex's page.

Another clue? The 4:44 ads appeared at NYC's Jay Street-MetroTech station. NME reports that the name of the particular station that got the 4:44 treatment is no coincidence. While there's been no confirmation either way from Tidal (Jay Z is part owner of the music service) or the rapper himself, the internet is digging deep — and we mean deep — to connect the dots.

Over on Reddit's hiphopheads subreddit, redditor youngkippur speculated that it could be a clue pointing to a new Jay Z-Beyoncé collab, writing, "They both have ‘IV’ tattooed on their ring fingers, which is the Roman numeral for 4. Their fucking DAUGHTER’s middle name is IVY which sounds identical to IV!!!! IVY = IV IV = 4!!!!"

Last month, rumors of a new Jay Z album started when Swizz Beats posted a photo to Instagram with the caption, "They don't even know what’s about to happen…Album ModeZone."

While there's nothing concrete explicitly linking the 4:44 campaign to Jay Z, music fans (and conspiracy theorists) are expecting something new. There's just no telling what it is yet.