Young Thug will always be good at demanding our attention. Earlier this week, for instance, he jumped on twitter late at night to announce that he’s changing his name to SEX. We don’t yet know whether he plans on sticking with that, but the mere fact that he’s saying it is pretty amazing. And Thug’s latest announcement seems just as outlandish, but it’s less ridiculous and more poignant.

As Billboard points out, Thug recently gave a quick video interview to Hypebeast. It was mostly about fashion, but in the course of the interview, he said something that nobody was expecting: “I got a deaf brother. I got a brother that can’t hear or talk. So I wanna act deaf for a year, so I ain’t gonna put out any any new music this year. 2019, I’ma put out probably [the long-teased album] Hy!£UN35.”

If Thug actually goes through with this, it’ll be a real departure for him. Thug is one of our most prolific high-profile artists; he regularly releases a lot of new music, both on his own and in guest appearances on other artists’ music. And Thug just scored his first credit on a #1 single; Camila Cabello’s “Havana,” which features Thug, topped the charts earlier this year. Thug is talking about intentionally slowing down his career when it seems to be at a crucial point, and he’s talking about doing it out of a sense of empathy. That’s a powerful thing.

You can watch the interview below. The stuff about acting deaf is at 1:10 mark.

I kind of hope Thug is telling the truth, and I kind of hope he’s not.