Falling Off, Looking Up
On an eight-year wait for two very different albums
If you were to wake up from a 12-year coma this week after hearing J. Cole’s 2014 album, Forest Hills Drive 2014, and listen to his latest work,The Fall-Off, you might think Jermaine was also in a 12-year coma. Not because he raps about things that happened in 2014 (sort of), but because J. Cole’s well has been tapped dry and each new project feels like he’s circling around the same topics. It’s not absurd to expect artists to evolve and mature as their listeners evolve and mature with their music. When I first really became a dutiful J. Cole listener, I was a naive 18-year-old that couldn’t stop putting “Apparently” on repeat in his car after I happened to catch it on the radio days after Forest Hills Drive 2014 dropped in December 2014. To hear Cole make a song like “Apparently” 12 years later, or even one like, god forbid, “Wet Dreamz,” gives me serious pause at someone’s raps about their maturity.
Eight years after teasing the album on the final track of his 2018 release, KOD, J. Cole released The Fall-Off this past Friday. The album is a monstrous swan song at 24 tracks and an hour and forty minutes long, enough to probably scare off the average Cole and hip-hop fan. Cole has never been quiet about this album besides its release date, stating from the beginning that it was his last album and that he would ceremoniously retire from hip-hop once it was given to the world. Since initially announcing the album, Cole has put out two mixtapes (The Off-Season and Might Delete Later), a label compilation album plus a “director’s cut” (Revenge of the Dreamers III), an anniversary edition of a masterpiece featuring eight new songs (Forest Hills Drive 2014), and a slew of very lyrically-impressive features. It has been clear to anyone paying attention that Cole was not done making music based off of the steady influx of new tracks.
Cole is not the only rapper to kick off 2026 with an album release. His blog-era peer, A$AP Rocky, released his long-awaited fourth studio album, DON’T BE DUMB, in January. Rocky has written and scrapped many versions of his follow-up album to 2018’s fantastic TESTING during a just-as-long wait of eight years. What began as ALL $MILES in 2019 quickly went wayward as the rapper was briefly imprisoned in Sweden for assault. It is unclear what vision Rocky had for the album (some claimed that it would be an entirely R&B album with no rapping), but songs like “Sundress” and “Babushka Boi” were reportedly intended as singles. When exactly the album became titled DON’T BE DUMB is lost to time, but it was confirmed to be released on August 30th, 2024, accompanied by a few different singles (including one featuring J. Cole). Rocky would push the album back with no confirmed release date, until December 2025.
The result of such a long wait is two very, very different approaches to hip-hop in 2026, albeit both are selfish and insulated in their own unique ways. Cole turns once more to the past for inspiration, seeking to find something worth rapping about when his heroes and idols are no longer there to provide a path. The album is separated into two halves, each part focusing on a different visit to his home in Fayetteville, North Carolina: one at 29 and one at 39 years old. If he had not made that clear to listeners prior to release, there would have been little lyrical content pointing towards this narrative. There’s something charming about the sentiment behind the album, but charm is not enough to carry the project on its own.
The Fall-Off sees Cole stuck in the past. The album’s physical copies feature a recreation of the posters of hip-hop and movie stars from his childhood bedroom, many of whom influence his delivery across some tracks. Those familiar with Common’s classic track, “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” will notice Cole’s use of hip-hop as a physical muse across the album, something each aspiring rapper has done at one point or another during their career. Cole goes so far as to flip Common’s song on “I Love Her Again,” sampling Common’s vocals on the chorus, but, instead, painting hip-hop not as a girl Cole has always loved from a young age, but instead as a prostitute (in a very on-brand moment of misogyny). If it’s not clear yet, much of the lyrical content is over-trodden ground, and despite Cole astronomically improving as a lyricist over a decade plus, nothing sounds fresh. The songs that do stand out as interesting seem indulgent and self-obsessed, like “Quik Stop,” where Cole raps about how much his music means to a fan who spoke to him at a gas station.
Perhaps the biggest downfall of The Fall-Off is its premise: it is Cole’s “final” album, the conclusion to Cole’s sports-themed album titles (The Come-Up, The Warm-Up, Friday Night Lights, The Off-Season). Whatever pressure Cole puts on himself to make a profound statement before retirement is also thrown upon the listener, who hopes to find something worth remembering in a rapper’s swan song. The result is some over-produced moments for which I can find no other adjective beyond “artsy,” some moments where Cole sings off-key over a lot of acoustic guitar, and an overwhelming sense of falling short of the moment. Cole is haunted by the “what ifs” of his career, specifically that of fighting for the title of “the Best” in 2024. He’s haunted by the “what ifs” of hip-hop (see the track of the same name on The Fall-Off, one which this author hopes is scrubbed from the internet at a future point). And, most importantly, he’s haunted by his own ego.
Meanwhile, DON’T BE DUMB sees a maturing rapper looking towards the future of hip-hop, with Rocky enlisting the help of up-and-coming and contemporary stars like Doechii, Sauce Walka, and Brent Faiyaz for his fifteen track album. Rocky, always one to push generic boundaries and blaze a trail for new sounds in rap (like the revolutionary “L$D” from 2015). Rocky sees his eight-year gap as a moment of opportunity to situate himself back at the top of rap, taking aim at a certain Canadian artist who once dated his wife, Rihanna. Rocky speaks on his new role as a father to three, his love for his wife, and, refreshingly, social injustices. There’s a lot of time spent talking about how great Rocky is for marrying Rihanna, which, I mean… yeah. I probably would, too.
However, Rocky’s album is not hampered by its self-indulgence, and, instead, it quickly breaks free of those moments. The incredible collaboration with Doechii, “ROBBERY,” features the MCs dancing over a jazz beat while claiming they’re in control of the rap game. “PUNK ROCKY,” the album’s “first” single, is a mellowed-out indie rocker with more singing than rapping during its three minutes. The album emphasizes that the 37-year-old rapper is not scared of hip-hop becoming something new or of personal reinvention, even if it means not reaching the success he achieved in the past (although DBD would go #1 its first week on the charts). Influence is everywhere for artists mature enough to say that younger generations can be idols, too.
Neither DON’T BE DUMB nor The Fall-Off are the last releases from either rapper. Rocky has already promised a deluxe reissue of DBD before his tour starts in May (if the past is any indication of this happening, I would warn against getting your hopes too high). Cole says that his once-promised mixtape, It’s A Boy, is still on the way, even though The Fall-Off is still being advertised as the MC’s last. It is but another installation of hip-hop artists entering into retirement just to unretire (see Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Lupe Fiasco, Kid Cudi, and, the king of fake-retiring, Westside Gunn). Here’s hoping he avoids another 12-year coma and finds some great inspiration for his next last album.