5 Takeaways From J. Cole’s ‘The Fall-Off,’ His Most ‘Real Hip-Hop’ Album Yet

So, one of rap’s great blog era-to now — the rarely explicitly explained, but understood as member of rap’s unofficial, but official Big 3 —J. Cole has dropped what’s possibly, but likely definitely not last album, The Fall-Off. I’ve given it a few listens. Here are five takeaways so far: 

It’s His Boomerest Album EVER

From the album cover to the soundscapes, J. Cole’s new LP is pretty much a safe haven for anyone who thinks hip-hop died a quarter century ago. Sure, that’s usually the case for a J. Cole album, but this one feels decidedly rich with boomer ambiance. He samples Common and basically remixes Common’s “I Used to Love Her” on “I Love Her Again.” “The Villest” borrows from the same sample The Alchemist used for Mobb Deep’s “The Realest.” I could go on. There are OutKast interpolations, concept songs — the works. The double LP format gives him room to explore all these sounds. Whether he does so successfully is a whole ’nother matter. But one thing’s for certain: he went full boomer. 

He’s Still at His Best When He’s at Home 

The Fall-Off’s album cover includes an image of the very same set-up Cole used to record his first song ever. Besides looking way cooler than it should, it serves as an apt microcosm for just where he makes his best music: at home. At least, symbolically. Here, as is the case on every single J. Cole project ever, his best raps come from close to home, where he remembers baddies that fell off, basketball stars that became drug addicts, and dreams that wound up in a ditch with another dead body. 

It’s his lucidity and down-home earnestness that make it all so potent. Just see“SAFETY” and “and the whole world is the ville.” For the former, he turns messages from the homies into unsparing recaps from Cole’s Fayetteville, North Carolina. Here, the pretentiousness that conspires against his best impulses recedes into reminiscences that are as tender as they are raw. A beer with a friend becomes a way to freeze time. Maybe even rewind it. But as he rapped on “Can I Holla at Ya” 13 years ago, “We speak about time as if we could just buy it back/If only it were that simple.” It’s not, but on “Safety” and the best tracks from The Fall-Off, it can feel that way. 

That Drake x Kendrick Beef Is Still on His Mind

“What If” is a well-intentioned, but ill-advised track that sees Cole rap from the perspective of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. There, he takes the liberty of apologizing on behalf of both the artists. Even if it’s an intellectual exercise, it feels presumptuous to suggest that Big and Pac’s beef was the result of a simple understanding, and that those fences could have been mended. But just as much as that, it feels like he rapped it as an allegory to his decision to drop out of the battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. 

The idea is way more explicit on “I Love Her Again,” where he speaks on the way industry pressure fueled a war between his two rap bros: “Now when it comes to love, jealousy will often creep/That type of games is why two of my homies start to beef/To both of them she said, ‘You're the best I ever had’/And the whole time that b***h was sayin' that type of shit to me.” 

If this is his last album — which, spoiler alert: there’s almost zero chance that it will be be — you hate to think he’s leaving us with this whole saga unresolved. 

It’s a Very Legacy-Coded Album 

Whether he accomplishes the goal is up to you (and us), but this album was very obviously crafted with the intention of being a “legacy-defining” album. The overflow of concept songs like his friends writing him a letter (“Safety”), Biggie and Pac song (“What If?”), the Nas “Rewind” attempt (“The Fall Off Is Inevitable”) and the “Used to Love Her” rework feel like entries on a checklist for How to Be a ’90s Rap GOAT. It feels formulaic and a little cheesy. But I guess maybe that’s what it takes to make a classic. He seems to think so. 

“SAFETY” and “and the whole world is the ville” are human enough and profound enough to add real gravitas to the whole album, though, and, at least through three listens, he’s not completely drowned out by his own self-importance. However…

It’s Not His Best Album

Any former or current J. Cole Stan can remember realizing that Cole’s debut album, Cole World: The Sideline Story was a big fat, oil-soaked bucket of Kentucky Fried Middington. I mean, even Cole realized it. On the overlain text for the track that ended up being titled “The Fall Off Is Inevitable,” Cole laid out his mission in plain view: "For the past 10 years this album has been hand crafted with one intention […] to do on my last what I was unable to do on my first.” So did J. Cole accomplish his goal? I’ve listened three times, so bare with me … but, I feel safe saying, “no.” It's not J. Cole's best album. And it’s not for lack of trying! 

He’s got some strong songs, he’s rapping on Alchemist production. He tapped Future and TEMS for vocals on the same damn song. “The Fall Off Is Inevitable” is really some very impressive rhyming. But, I think Cole has ultimately always misunderstood — or disregarded — his primary appeal: his down-home, earthly storytelling. First-person and unpretentious stories about losing his virginity and being a run-of-the-mill, street adjacent future college bro / rap star. That element is lacking a bit of the freshness here because we’ve heard it all before, and the bops aren’t bopping the same way. No “No Role Modelz” in sight, if you get what I mean. 

I’ll analyze this album in more intensive fashion after I bump it 10 more times over the weekend, but I know Cole well enough to say this: The Fall-Off is not his best album. It’s also not evidence that he’s fallen off.