Is J. Cole Dropping The Off-Season Mixtape in Two Weeks?
J. Cole's most recent album, KOD, dropped just over two years ago in 2018. And now, the rumor mill is buzzing that he may be dropping The Off-Season mixtape ahead of his long-awaited sixth LP, The Fall Off, could be arriving soon.
Bas, who is signed to Cole's Dreamville Records, uploaded a post to Instagram last night (April 28), which began circulating online shortly after. The image, which has since been deleted, features a photo of a focused J. Cole in the booth. The IG post was captioned, "The Off-Season. Pack your bags. In two weeks."
The upload also included three head exploding emojis and a rocket emoji. It's unclear why Bas removed the social media post, but it doesn't look like Cole nor anyone else on the Dreamville team is confirming an impending release that might arrive in two weeks.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean the effort won't drop. Late last year, J. Cole went to his Instagram page to share a photo of a notebook that included the words "The Fall Off Era" at the top and "Features"—for the impressive feature run on other artists' songs that he did in 2018—and "ROTD3"—the 2019 Dreamville Records compilation—written underneath but with a line through both, signifying he'd accomplished those. After that, the rapper wrote "The Off-Season" to highlight what fans think is a new mixtape, "It's A Boy" for the second child he had in and he ends the list with "The Fall Off."
The Fayetteville, N.C. rapper has been working on The Fall Off since at least 2018. On KOD, the outro "1985 (Intro to The Fall Off)" signified that Cole had another new LP in the works. He even released songs like "Middle Child" in 2019, as well as "Snow on the Bluff," "Lion King on Ice" and "The Climb Back" in 2020, which fans thought would be for The Fall Off.
The former 2010 XXL Freshman offered those few loose singles to seemingly hold fans over as they wait for a full-length album.
In 2020, Cole dropped "Snow on tha Bluff" as well as "The Clime Back" and "Lion King on Ice"—the latter tracks appeared on his two-song pack Lewis Street. While fans were eager for all three offerings, "Snow on tha Bluff" received criticism via social media. Many people called out J. Cole for misogyny in his lyrics. He was also accused of indirectly addressing Noname when he described a Black woman who was bothered by racism and police brutality, and its affect on the Black community.
Cole later addressed the critiques he received and appeared to take an unapologetic stance although he commended Noname for the work she's done within the Black community. Cole also admitted to not fully informing himself about the excessive police brutality that had transpired at the time, explaining that he "just be rapping."
Nonetheless, fans have been waiting for a new album from J. Cole for some time, so hopefully their patience hasn't been in vain. Let's also be optimistic that this isn't the last music from Cole as folks speculate retirement may come from the rhymer following the release of The Fall Off album.
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