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J. Cole Continues to Perfect His Craft During "The Off-Season"

Mduduzi Hlatshwayo • May 19, 2021

J. Cole is back. Last Friday, Cole dropped his highly anticipated 6th studio album, The Off-Season. His original plan was to just drop the project without any lead-single, but ultimately Cole changed his mind and released Interlude, which is track 9 on the album. Releasing singles is always a tricky situation as we, the fans, will make an instant judgement about the sound and the content of the forthcoming project, strictly based off that 2-minute song. Following the drop of the single (a few days prior to the album release), Cole then dropped a documentary about "The Off-Season" called Applying Pressure, which is also the title of track 4 on the album. Cole touches on his work ethic and how the energy he wanted to bring to this project needed to be on par with the energy he brought making his second mixtape, The Warm Up.

Unlike his last two projects, Cole not only rapped over other producers beats but also included guest appearances from the likes of 21 Savage (on m y . l i f e), Lil Baby (on p r i d e . i s . t h e . d e v i l), and a few others. In his doc, Cole said that he wouldn't want to get older, look back at his rap career, and think "wow, you didn't really work with anyone." What I love and appreciate about this album, as well as Cole's mentality going into it, is how he zoned in on what he does best and performed it at the highest level. Cole may never be as good of a storyteller as Kendrick Lamar or drop as many hits as Drake, but one thing that Cole can do just as well as any arguable "GOAT" rapper is rap at the highest level, and he did that for the entire duration of "The Off-Season".

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