The Off-Season by J.Cole.
Jermaine returns hungrier than ever before, and with a few welcome surprises.
Whenever J.Cole says he’s gonna drop an album, the whole world stops and listens, as one of hip-hop’s leading figures he doesn’t beat around the bush. Instead of feeding into months of hype and promotion, he simply says he’s got a new album, it’s coming out in a little over a week, and he bounces. It’s enough to get listeners foaming at the mouths as they hypothesize what the album will sound like, what concept it will follow, and whether it will continue his run going double platinum with no features.
Admittedly, I disliked Cole’s last album KOD, while a handful of tracks towards the end were great and full of emotional moments, the Soundcloud parody production and muddy concept of “don’t do drugs kids” fell flat for me. While I understood the whole notion of why he chose this idea, it felt quite dull in its execution. A step down from the personal/mature story told on 2016’s 4 Your Eyez Only.
So going into The Off-Season, I had high expectations that Cole would tap back into his element that made him shine and drop some memorable bars with an interesting concept. Well? This new album almost certainly doesn’t disappoint, Jermaine is hungrier than ever as he raps his ass off over the project’s excellent production. Trading the conceptual works from before in exchange for an album full of mixtape quality fun, while including a few welcome surprises.
The biggest shocker being the inclusion of guest features, the first time on a J.Cole album in 8 years! While it breaks his double plat with no features streak, the payoff includes verses by the album’s two sole features: 21 Savage and Lil Baby. R&B singer 6LACK, Morray and Bas also come through to harmonize on a few hooks as well as legends such as Puff Daddy, Cam’ron, and Lil Jon for some spoken word excerpts.
The beats here are produced by the likes of Boi-1da, Timbaland, T-Minus, DJ Dahi, and Cole among others. The instrumentals are filled with old-school soul samples and groovy boom-bap. Album opener “95.south” feels just like an early 2000’s crunk era track. “my.life” invokes the same style as heard on 21 and Cole’s previous collab “a lot”, while the stank face inducing “applying.pressure” is filled with typical DJ sound effects like dancehall laser blasts and those annoying airhorns, further emphasizing this mixtape-like concept of The Off-Season. It’s evident Cole wanted to make something purely focused on banging beats and lyricism featuring clever punchlines, in a similar vein as his decade-old mixtapes rather than produce another high conceptual album as he’s done previously.
That’s not to say that Cole’s gotten lazy, taking its name from the time off basketball players take in-between seasons to train and practice, this new album shows Cole’s been busy with his penmanship. Altough he’s still got some work to do. (there’s one line about Michael B. Jordan calling his wife that just doesn’t flow well.) The majority of his verses here show off his impeccable flow and rhymes.
He’s pulling ball player references on “amari” (“How could you ever try to play me? Kill’em on a song, walk out the booth, do the Westbrook rock-a-baby”) he’s firing shots at other rappers who drop hour long projects and marketing them as deluxe editions with “95.south” (“Look how everybody clappin’ when your thirty-song album do a measly hundred thou”). He’s challenging his flow and letting his competiton know how broke they are on “applying.pressure”.
21 Savage and Lil Baby come through on “my.life” and “pride.is.the.devil” respectively. 21 looks at his come up from gang violence and famlial issues (“I blame my pops for that shit ’cause if he didn’t fail, he could’ve corrected me. Give all the props to my momma ’cause no matter what, she always protected me”) while Lil Baby keeps his vision from giving into pride (“I’m staying hella focused and I can’t forget the bigger picture”).
Other favourites include the contemplative “let.go.my.hand”, a reflection of being a black father in America and his responsibilty to make his son strong, even referencing his fight with Diddy back in 2013. Previously released “interlude” and “the.climb.back” bring gravity over death and trauma. Album closer “hunger.on.hillside” ends the album with Cole’s reassurance to stick with his roots, it got him this far and it will continue to do so.
Overall The Off-Season is reminder that J.Cole is untouchable. He refuses to fold in what calls the fall off era of his career. Cole makes sure that he bodies nearly every track here by forgoing the conceptual third eye opening ballads for some straightforward bars and beats. Topped off with stellar production and some guest verses from rap’s recent superstars, The Off-Season is one Cole’s best albums in some time. His choice to make a more simplistic project might rub listeners to wrong way, but I think the pay off was well worth it.
As the first big album drop of the year, Jermaine’s set the bar high and if this is any indication of where he’ll go in the next few years, then we might be in for the best leg of Cole’s career.
Favourite tracks: 95.south, amari, my.life, applying.pressure, pride.is.the.devil, let.go.my.hand, interlude, the.climb.back, hunger.on.hillside.
