On Friday, April 5th at midnight, J. Cole had a surprise for the hip-hop world; his first album since his 2021 project, The Off-Season.
This unexpected album comes off the heels of Kendrick Lamar throwing shots at him and Drake on a feature off of Metro Boomin and Future’s newest collaboration record, We Don’t Trust You.
Cole has hinted at another album, titled The Fall Off for around 4-5 years, and this seems like a quickly put together response album made from songs that didn’t make the cut for the upcoming project. Cole has promised that The Fall Off will be released after he has finished his “Big As The What?” tour with Drake, which he finished up just last week.
Kicking off the album, “Pricey”, which features Ari Lennox and Gucci Mane, is a great intro track. It has great flow, solid lyrics, and the sample is pretty good. Cole says in this song that he is hitting his prime, which is hard to back up considering that his record 2014 Forest Hills Drive, is widely regarded as his best project. This line in “Pricey” also builds anticipation for his upcoming album, The Fall Off. The next track, “Crocodile Tears”, mentions The Fall Off yet again, while also naming Cole the greatest of all time. This song also sends a subtle diss at Future, whose nickname is Pluto, with the line, “They downgraded, they Pluto”. Other than those lyrics, the song is fine, if a little plain. “Ready ‘24” is where Cole says he believes there isn’t a rapper better than him on this planet. An amazing sample with a smooth instrumental, “Ready ‘24” features Cole’s signature storytelling ability side by side with his great flow.
“Huntin’ Wabbits” is pretty slow and kind of boring. A lazy flow from Cole with a slow instrumental makes the song feel like it is wading through quicksand. “H.Y.B.” features Dreamville labelmate Bas and British superstar Central Cee. It has a relaxed instrumental and a solid flow, but nothing in this track really stands out. “Pi” is one of the worst songs on the album. It’s very lyrically lacking and, while the instrumental is good, the one-liners Cole performs almost always miss the mark. The final track, “7 Minute Drill”, is the song that everyone is talking about. In this song, Cole says that Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Kendrick Lamar’s sophomore album, was boring, which is ironic because this album’s main flaw is that it comes off as boring and stale. Nothing else really stands out here, just a Kendrick diss that was written in 7 minutes.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This album, though a surprise, wasn’t good. Cole keeps quipping that he has hit his prime and there isn’t a better rapper on Earth, however, this project is full of duds. It feels very rushed, the songs don’t fit together, and it is very stale, boring, and plain. It feels like the feeling of eating plain potato bread in the format of an album.
Lyrics: 4.5/10
Instrumentals: 6.1/10
Quality: 4.7/10
Experience: 5.1/10
Final Rating: 5.1/10
