It’s this same quality that also make him come across to many as an inspiring, reflective everyman in a way that has catapulted him to the top of rap for the last several years. His projects are undergirded by a thoughtfulness that can be clumsy and heavy-handed, in individual bars and songs, and in the concept album framework of his records (the deadly sins of “Born Sinner” the trajectory of his life on “2014 Forest Hills Drive” the kids-on-drugs and its other acronyms of “KOD”). Indeed, Cole’s earnestness has always been both the key to his success and his greatest artistic fault. In the past, sentimental pianos and instrumentals have opened his albums, somber gestures toward the supposedly deeper, real subject matter to come. It is also a proper introduction to a distinctly new shift in Cole’s vision here.
The song, featuring a gruff introduction from rapper Cam’ron and an outro sample from Lil Jon, has a glorious kind of pitbull grandiosity to both its production and to Cole’s scoffing cockiness. “The Off-Season” contains that strain of a wiser star, but it only takes the outstanding opener, “95.south,” to disavow us of any notion of fatherly compassion. On “Middle Child,” his highest-charting song to date from 2019, he did much of the same, praising the rapper greats that preceded him while worrying for the young ones following behind him. Not long after, he played guidance counselor to one of these rappers, Lil Pump, on a couch for an hour. His last album, “KOD” - a somewhat admirable but often misguided and moralistic record - centered around his lamentations over the vices (money, drugs, sex) corrupting the youth, and of the wayward new generation of rappers helping to peddle these poisons.
In the last few years, Cole, secure in his cemented status as one of the Big Three of his rap generation alongside Drake and Kendrick Lamar, has rather overtly cast himself as an elder statesman. The tone of “The Off-Season,” boasting the assurance and contemplation of a now-seasoned veteran, can feel both appropriate and surprising. In its looseness, the album - his most economical and wholly consistent one thus far - feels like a serrated jolt, a brazen and convincing statement from the rapper of his all-time status as an MC. Stripped down to an at once polished and grimy mixture of soul samples, seizuring trap hi-hats and boom-bap drums, Cole offers, amid some moments of grave contemplation, a kind of mixtape-energy record of lyrical exercises and bangers. In an Instagram post from late December of last year, the superstar rapper offered a simple list of “The Fall Off Era”: a Sharpied track that traces his bracing run of guest feature verses over the last couple years through what he suggest will be his final record, the yet-to-come “The Fall Off.”Ĭole’s new record, “The Off-Season,” sits in the midway point of his exit plan, and also reads as a turning point.
Cole appears to have already mapped out his own departure. Ostensibly conscious of this trajectory, J.
The more common route is perhaps to fade into obscurity with a constellation of diminishing successes.
#J COLE IMMORTAL FLP CRACK#
Have you ever seen a fiend cook crack on the spoon? Have you ever seen a nigga that was black on the moon? Have you ever seen your brother go to prison as you cry? Have you ever seen a motherfuckin' ribbon in the sky? Nope, all I see is that C.R.E.A.How does a star exit the stage gracefully? Rare is it to leave on one’s own terms, legacy intact, remembered in retirement. Real niggas don't die Forward with the plot One-Seven-Forty-Five Form at the plot Real niggas don't die Form on the block Real niggas don't lie Form in the plot My niggas don't die Form on the block Real niggas don't die Form on the block Real niggas don't die Real niggas don't die
#J COLE IMMORTAL FLP FULL#
Now I was barely seventeen with a pocket full of hope Screamin' dollar and a dream with my closet lookin' broke And my nigga's lookin' clean, gettin' caught up with that dope Have you ever served a fiend with a pocket full of soap? Nigga I can tell you things that you probably shouldn't know Have you ever heard the screams when the body hit the floor? Flashbacks to the pain, wakin' up, cold sweats Six o'clock in the mornin', gotta hit the BowFlex Get my weight up on the block, keep watch for the cops God they love to serve a nigga three hots and a cot Nowadays crime pays like a part time job And the drought got me prayin' for a Carl Thom vibe Summer Rain come again Numb the pain 'cause it's hard for a felon In my mind I been cryin', know it's wrong but I'm sellin' Eyes wellin' up with tears Thinkin' 'bout my niggas dead in the dirt Immortalized on this shirt
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