J. Cole Finally Announces The Fall-Off

J. Cole’s perpetually teased seventh studio album now has a release date. The Fall-Off—no, I don’t know why the hyphen is there either—finally drops February 6.

Cole’s announcement arrives with a teaser trailer featuring the rapper going about his daily routine—eating food, hanging in the park, washing his Lamborghini Urus—while an unnamed narrator talks about the ups and downs of fame:

“Everything is supposed to go away eventually. You see this especially in show business with famous actors or musicians, and it’s like, Oh, this guy used to be famous and then he fell off. What happened? And they want to point to, they did this and this and they made some sort of mistake, instead of thinking that it’s kind of crazy they got famous in the first place. So few people reach that level. Of course it’s not going to last forever because somebody else has to take that spot and that’s how show business has been forever. But no they always want to say, nah that guy fell off. They want to look down on him for just going through the natural cycle of rising and falling.”

In 2024, Cole released Might Delete Later, a mixtape that initially included “7 Minute Drill,” a diss track about Kendrick Lamar. The song was a response to Lamar’s explosive verse on “Like That,” which ignited the now-infamous feud between the Compton raper and Drake. “I’m so proud of that project, except for one part,” Cole said after deleting the song. “It’s one part of that shit that make me feel like, man, that’s the lamest shit I ever did in my fucking life.”

In 2025, Cole ended his long-running Dreamville Festival. His last studio album was 2021’s The Off-Season. You can check out the artwork for The Fall-Off below.

Read Pitchfork’s review of Might Delete Later.