Last spring, [artist id="502642"]Eminem[/artist] promised to drop a [article id="1609937"]sequel to his Relapse album[/article] in late 2009, announcing that he'd almost finished work on the follow-up to his comeback effort. "It's extremely close to being finished," he said of the sequel LP. "It just depends on how many songs I wanna put on it." Then, the rapper pushed the release back to 2010.

And early Wednesday morning, he did a complete reversal, tweeting, "There is no Relapse 2." It was the first tweet from the rapper since March 29, when he promised, "Don't worry. Some big news is coming. Soon."

With no elaboration, the latest terse missive sent fans into wild speculation about whether the notoriously exacting, and reclusive, MC had decided to completely scrap the album, or if he is headed back into semi-retirement. A spokesperson for Eminem could not be reached for comment at press time to elaborate on what his future plans are and what will become of the tracks he'd recorded for Relapse 2.

Just last week, producer [article id="1635365"]Just Blaze told MTV News[/article] that he'd been working on new songs for Eminem, saying "[the album], it's getting there, but we still got a lot of work." Though he was sworn to secrecy, Blaze did reveal that "a lot of good music is being made. ... He's really back spitting. The wordplay is crazy, the metaphors are crazy. He's really back on his game. He had his ups, he had his downs, he's back way, way, way up. This is definitely going to be up there with the best of his albums, for sure, for sure. The fact that he's branched out working with a lot of different people now, collaborating in a lot of different ways that he never has before, I think he's going to surprise a lot of people."

In addition to seemingly working on exciting new music, Em will also pop up alongside Paramore's Hayley Williams on [article id="1636033"]B.o.B.'s upcoming debut album, The Adventures of Bobby Ray.[/article] Williams was hyped about Slim Shady's rhymes on the track they did together, [article id="1635427"]"Airplanes (Part II),"[/article] saying, "he just slays me, he's such a genius."