J. Cole released his debut album, The Come-Up, in 2007, and almost two decades and six award-winning studio albums later, he releases his biggest and most passionate mixtape to date. J Cole is using his newest album, The Fall-Off, as a graceful exit out of the music industry, to do what he wasn’t able to do in his first album, and to tell listeners about his story and struggles in his life.
The Fall-Off is J. Cole's seventh and final studio album, as he plans on retiring from music to pursue a business in producing music for others. This is a double album that contains 24 songs across two discs, Disc 29 and Disc 39, each with 12 songs lasting a total of 101 minutes.
Across this entire track, Cole shows his incredible raw lyrical skill, being able to shift tones depending on the story and the pacing of the music. No matter if the song is fast and hype like “Two Six,” or slow and calm like “Ocean Way”, he is still able to convey his message thoroughly and precisely, leaving listeners with a clear idea of the story he is trying to tell.
Throughout the album, Cole describes his upbringing and his relationship with his parents on “Bunce Road Blues (with Future and Tems)”. He goes deeper into his life with an absent father and a mother that didn’t know what to do with him, saying “My mama ain’t never even give me no rubbers / Papa was gone, how to put Trojan on was somethin’ I had to discover.”
Cole also dives in the themes of his impact on others and the differences that his music makes. In the song “Quik Stop”, he recalls an exchange with a drug dealer he met while pumping gas. He turned out to be a big fan of Cole, and told Cole his life story, including facts about his upbringing, past struggles and current struggles. The fan shared how J. Cole’s music helped him push through those issues, stating “I played your shit when bro got hit, it helped me cope with the pain / I played your shit when momma tripped and I had nowhere to stay / I swear you was wit’ me in my loneliest phase.”
The Fall-Off is shown to be a pure autobiography, leaving little time to truly develop other people outside of J. Cole in the album. Many people included in his stories, like his family, his past lover and even Tupac Shakur are all only lightly developed or talked about, leaving the sole focus of the album to be himself.
Though this album is definitely the biggest J. Cole made, it may not be his best. His storytelling, flow and other factors are incredible, but none of that beats older J Cole, when his career was just taking lift off and he had bills to pay. However, The Fall-Off has the potential to be his 7th album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Chart.