If ‘The Fall-Off’ is J. Cole’s Last Album, I Am Going to Miss the Hell Out of Him
Cole’s rumored last album has me misty, scared for hip-hop discourse and wondering who’s going to make us argue in our 70s.
On Wednesday, Jermaine Cole—better known to us all as J. Cole or colloquially by fans as “JERMAINE!!!!!”—announced what is believed to be his final album, “The Fall-Off,” which, according to his Instagram, has been in the works for 10 years.
I’m going to open up here with some radical honesty: Not only have I never been a huge fan of J. Cole (the artist), I’ve never quite understood why everybody else was either. Now, that statement needs some unpacking—please allow me to open up my Samsonite.
I am a huge fan of J. Cole, the human. I listened to his entire “Inevitable” audio series, and by the time it concluded, I was a bigger fan of him and his journey than ever. It was so…honest and authentic. Cole was just like me and all of my college homeboys who had dreams and plans, for whom some worked out, and others, the pivot was their destination. Hearing him recount the moments before the successes and all was inspiring, to say the least. Cole has that same thing, to me, that Tupac had: an uncanny familiarity and commonality with seemingly everybody, while having this insane talent that has made him a household name.
With that said, his albums never quite stuck the landing. Indeed, flashes of brilliance abound all over his works; his lyrical abilities are a godsend, and why any rapper allowed him to rap on their beats is beyond me. But his own projects often teetered on super-mid. I wanted to love them; I wanted to be a Cole superfan like so many people I know. I just couldn’t get there, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve come to realize that this is OK.
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