As Ja Rule prepares to serve a two-year prison sentence on a weapons possession charge, the rapper will be pulling doubly duty prepping the release of his new album 'The Renaissance Project.' The Queens native plans to drop the project before beginning his prison bid, and has no plans of letting his incarceration impede his career comeback. "Damn, some of u act like 18 months is forever," an optimistic Rule wrote on his Twitter page Monday (Jan. 3). "It ain't hard to tell who the snitches are!!! Renaissance Project will be dropping before I go in #Supportrealhiphop."

The newly titled album, was previously called 'Venni Vetti Vecci 2010,' which is Latin for 'I came, I saw, I conquered,' and was to be a follow-up to his 1999 album of the same name. The 34-year-old changed the album title following a trip to Africa. "I changed the name of my album from 'Venni Vetti Vecci 2010,' first of all, 'Venni Vetti Vecci' was my baby, that was my first album," he said in an interview. "You can never duplicate that era in time. That was my whole life's work in that album up until that time.

For No. 2, Ja Rule found inspiration in statue he saw in Africa. "They built this statue out there, it's called The Renaissance and it's a statue of a man holding his baby on his shoulders with his wife in his arms, pointing to the heavens. To me, it just symbolized what I'm about right now and just the word -- fresh start, I said that's what I want to call my project, 'The Renaissance Project' and it represents what I'm about ..."

Back in 2007 Rule's chauffeured Mercedes Maybach was pulled over following a concert at New York City's Beacon Theater. Authorities later uncovered a loaded semi-automatic in the vehicle, and slapped Rule with a gun possession charge, for which he plead guilty to last month. He is scheduled to be officially sentence in February.

Watch Ja Rule feat. Lil Wayne's 'Uh-Ohhh!!'
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