Five years between studio albums, then a Scorpio Full Moon, a Mercury return, and Pluto crawling across his natal Saturn — all in the same week 'It's Been Awful' debuted at #1. Here's the astrology under the comeback.
Five years between studio albums, then a Scorpio Full Moon, a Mercury return, and Pluto crawling across his natal Saturn — all in the same week 'It's Been Awful' debuted at #1. Here's the astrology under the comeback.
Isaiah Rashad waited five years to put another studio album into the world.
Album rollouts get planned months in advance, but the cosmic calendar around May 1, 2026 reads almost suspiciously well. The album dropped on a Scorpio Full Moon — Sun at 11° Taurus directly opposite Moon at 10° Scorpio, the opposition tightening through release day. The Beltane full moon is one of the most psychologically loaded lunations of the year: Taurus-Scorpio is the axis of value, money, intimacy, and what gets exposed when the masks come off. It's Been Awful is a confessional title delivered into the most confessional lunation on the calendar. That's good astrology, intentional or not.
There's a second layer underneath. On the same day, transit Mercury was sitting at 27° Aries — within two and a half degrees of his natal Mercury at 29° Aries — and applying. That's a Mercury return in the most literal sense: the transiting messenger returning to the exact zodiacal place it occupied at his birth. Mercury returns happen yearly, but a Mercury return that lands inside the same forty-eight-hour window as a #1 album release is the kind of coincidence working astrologers learn to take seriously. His voice — the natal Mercury — was being formally re-handed back to him on the day he gave it back to the audience.
Rashad's Sun is at 25° Taurus — late in the sign, fully soaked in Taurean tempo. Taurus is the slow-developing earth sign, the placement that won't be rushed, that takes the time it takes. Five years between studio albums is not, on its own, an unusual gap for a Taurus Sun who also happens to make music about exactly the kind of slow internal weather Taurus tends to inhabit. Where some artists are built to release every twelve to eighteen months, this chart was always going to set its own clock. The Taurean register is also the reason his voice on record reads the way it does — unhurried, grounded, willing to sit on a feeling for the length of a track without flinching.
The pivot is his Mercury — 29°40' Aries, the anaretic degree, the final twenty arcminutes of the sign. Anaretic Mercury in Aries is one of the most distinctive Mercury signatures a rapper can carry. Aries Mercury thinks in fast bursts, fights with words, refuses to soften the take. The anaretic degree is the urgency degree — the placement astrologers associate with subjects who feel they have something to finish before time runs out. Stack a Taurus Sun's patience next to an Aries Mercury at the literal last degree of fire, and you get the structural tension underneath every Rashad project: a man who will take five years to finish saying something, and once he does, will say it like it's the last thing he gets to say.
Both of his personal-relating planets sit in Cancer. Venus at 8° Cancer is the placement of artists whose love language is care, family, mood, kitchen-light intimacy. Mars at 24° Cancer is the placement of an emotional engine — drive that runs through feeling rather than through aggression. Cancer Mars doesn't push from the chest; it pushes from the gut. On record, that's why so much of his catalog reads as protective and porous at the same time, songs that feel like they're worried about you while they're talking to you. The Venus-Mars duet in Cancer is the architecture behind the whole confessional mode.
Now lay May 1, 2026 over that. Transit Jupiter was sitting at 19° Cancer — applying toward his natal Mars at 24° Cancer with about a five-degree orb. Jupiter on Mars in Cancer is one of the kindest transit pairings in the playbook: the planet of growth on the planet of drive, in the sign that already runs his emotional engine. Mercury follows Jupiter into Cancer in June, deepening that water emphasis through the summer. The release window isn't an isolated peak — it's the front edge of a longer Cancer transit story this chart was built to metabolize.
The lull between projects didn't happen in a vacuum. The House Is Burning closed the previous chapter in 2021. Across the years that followed, his natal Saturn at 6°50' Aquarius has been sitting under the slow approach of transit Pluto into Aquarius. Pluto is now at 5°30' Aquarius — within roughly a degree and a half of conjunction to that natal Saturn, applying. Pluto-on-Saturn is one of the heavier transits in the catalog. It restructures the part of the chart that handles authority, discipline, the long-game architecture of a career. People don't usually emerge from a Pluto-Saturn conjunction with the same posture they walked into it carrying. They emerge having quietly rebuilt the foundation underneath their work.
That's the cosmic marker for the silence, and arguably the cosmic marker for the title. It's Been Awful isn't the title of a record made by an artist breezing through. It's the title of a record made by someone metabolizing a Pluto transit on his Saturn — the placement that holds whatever he treats as serious — and reporting back from the other side of it. The aspect doesn't perfect for the first time until later in 2026, then runs through 2027 in waves. The album is the visible front edge of a longer underground process. The wider Saturn-in-Aries cycle has been raising the temperature on that same architecture since mid-2025.
There's a quieter kind transit doing visible work in May 2026 too. Transit Saturn at 9° Aries is forming a trine — the 120° aspect, the cooperative angle — to his natal Jupiter at 6° Leo, within roughly two and a half degrees of exact. Saturn-Jupiter trines are the structural-reward windows in any chart: the period when the disciplined, often invisible work of previous years finally hands the chart-holder visible expansion. They're not breakout transits in the lightning-strike sense. They're earned-momentum transits. For an artist whose Jupiter sits in Leo — the sign of stage, audience, performed identity — a Saturn trine to that Jupiter from Aries is exactly the configuration you'd want underneath a #1 chart debut.
Pair that with the Pluto-on-Saturn happening simultaneously and you get the actual story shape of this comeback. Pluto is rebuilding the foundation; Saturn-Jupiter is letting the surface visibly pay off; Mercury is returning the voice; Jupiter on Mars is amplifying the engine; the Scorpio Full Moon is dramatizing the whole thing under the most exposing lunation Taurus-Scorpio offers. Five separate transits, five separate narrative beats, all stacking inside the same ten-day window. Aries season was already setting the table; May 1 was just the moment the table got served.
Rashad's birth time isn't publicly verified — Wikipedia and the AstroDatabank index confirm the May 16, 1991 date and Chattanooga location, but no time meets the Rodden A/AA standard. SerenAstro's policy is to omit rising sign and house claims when the time is unverified, and to flag the few placements that genuinely shift inside a single day. His Moon is one of those. At noon on May 16, 1991, the Moon was at 29°51' Gemini — sitting on the very edge of Cancer. The Moon moves roughly thirteen degrees a day. If he was born in the morning, the Moon is solidly late Gemini; if he was born in the late afternoon or evening, it's already crossed into early Cancer. We don't claim a Moon sign in either direction. What's worth saying is that both readings would point in the same direction his existing planets already point: either fast, articulate, observation-driven Gemini Moon, or porous, protective, kitchen-light Cancer Moon stacking with his Cancer Venus and Mars. Both are coherent with the music. The chart doesn't need the Moon question resolved to read clearly.
Take the chart with the calendar in front of it and the shape of the comeback tracks cleanly. The Taurus Sun is why the silence wasn't dysfunction — it was tempo. The anaretic Aries Mercury is why, when he finally spoke, it sounded like something he had to finish. The Cancer Venus and Mars are why the music feels like it's worrying about you while it's talking to you. The Aquarius Saturn under Pluto is why the silence was actually rebuilding something. And the Scorpio Full Moon plus Mercury return on the day of the drop are why this particular release week, out of every possible release week in 2026, is the one that landed at #1. The April Aries stellium set the ignition; May 1 is where the engine caught. Astrology can't tell you whether It's Been Awful ages into a classic or whether the next project comes faster than five years. It can tell you the season he's standing in. That season is exposing on the surface, transformative underneath, and clearly only at the front edge.
Isaiah Rashad is a Taurus Sun at 25 degrees, born May 16, 1991, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His Mercury sits at the very last degree of Aries (29°40'), with Venus and Mars both in Cancer and Saturn in Aquarius. The combination gives him Taurus patience over an Aries-anaretic communicative engine.
His birth time has not been publicly published or verified by Astro-Databank. SerenAstro rates his birth data Rodden X — the date and city are confirmed, but no time source meets the standard for verified data. We omit rising sign, house placements, and angle-based interpretations from his chart for that reason.
The album dropped under a Scorpio Full Moon — Sun at 11° Taurus opposite Moon at 10° Scorpio. The Taurus-Scorpio axis governs value, intimacy, and what gets exposed when masks come off. A confessional album titled It's Been Awful arriving on the most confessional lunation of the year is unusually clean astrological timing.
Transit Pluto at 5°30' Aquarius is within a degree and a half of his natal Saturn at 6°50' Aquarius — applying. Pluto-on-Saturn restructures the architecture a chart treats as serious: discipline, authority, long-game career foundation. The exact passage runs through 2026 and 2027 in waves, making this the front edge of a multi-year rebuild, not a one-week event.
Astrologically, the gap between The House Is Burning (2021) and It's Been Awful (2026) tracks the slow approach of transit Pluto to his natal Aquarius Saturn. Pluto-Saturn transits coincide with periods of underground restructuring rather than visible output. The Taurus Sun also sets a slower default tempo than most chart-topping rappers carry.
