The Carolina rapper finally delivered his long awaited seventh album and we picked some of our favorite bars. Check ’em out.
J. Cole performs during the 6LACK – Since I Have A Lover Tour at the YouTube Theatre in Inglewood, CA on October 10, 2023.
Christopher Polk/Billboard
The Fall-Off is here.
J. Cole has been working towards this album since the 2007’s The Come Up, and he’s positioned it to be a swan song of sorts, or at least the closing of this current chapter of his already impressive career. There’s been so much interesting and mythology surrounding this project that some of his fans assumed that when he backed out of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle that it might be part of the rollout. Like no way Cole is going to pop shit and apologize, this must be because he’s making himself “fall off.”
That, of course, wasn’t the case at all as he has since tried to explain his decision on songs like “Port Antonio.” There aren instances of that on The Fall-Off, but the beef that ended the Big 3 era isn’t at the center of this nearly two-hour double disc affair. Instead, it’s about the Carolina rapper’s experience of climbing out of his hometown of Fayetteville to the top of rap’s mountain as he tries to juggle being a superstar artist while staying grounded as a husband, father, and friend.
At this particular point in time, he finds himself having to prove himself all over again and from the reaction online, some might say that he delivered. Now, it remains to be seen if he cares enough to continue delivering full length albums on a consistent basis, but one thing is for certain, he can still rap at a very high level and his songwriting has gotten better since he came into the game during the mid 2000s.
With that being said, check out the 10 best lines on The Fall-Off below.
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“You got the nerve to ask why I stay in the house more/ Get paid for goin’ in, the f—k I’m goin’ out for?”
Song: “Man Up Above”
Okay, Cole. This was a witty line. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay in the house. Maybe catch up on some shows, write up a Letterboxd review, play some video games, and go in the booth to spit more fire.
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“Turning to the Lord’s ironic at a time when these young n—as so violent, they’ll let off at God in the flesh”
Song: “Drum n Bass”
It’s nasty out here. Keep your head on a swivel. They don’t care who they hit these days. It’s part of the reason rap has been having a hard time with turning younger stars into older superstars.
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“On cloud nine, now signed to my hero/ One of the so-called kings of this rap thing that I swear to usurp/ Decade later, momma cut on the cable/ My motivation to be greater ends the moment I peer in her purse/ I’m growing shorter, pampers cover my hind quarters/ I watch my father walk back in my life and it clears up a hurt I couldn’t explain”
Song: “The Fall-Off Is Inevitable”
The first line ruffled a couple feathers, because people were asking what Cole actually means when he refers to Jay-Z as the game’s “so-called” kings. But the one that stuck out to me was the one about his father walking back into his life, which was probably a hard thing for him revisit, let alone putting it into a song.
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“I never understood the phrase, ‘It’s lonely at the top’/ Until I scaled that mountain all the way up ’til it stopped/ And if you’re ever blessed enough to make it to this spot/ You’ll see the ones you looked up to unfortunately had to drop”
Song: “Lonely at the Top”
You know the old adage, sometimes idols became your rivals. Rap is a competitive sport and we see this type of thing play out all the time. It’s like when Kobe came into the league and immediately started chasing Jordan’s legacy as soon as he was able to. Rick Ross breaks this dynamic down on his Birdman diss track “Idols Becomes Rival.”
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“I started killing n—as one by one, the crowd was gettin’ bigger/ When I got done, they said, ‘Youngin is a problem’/ But yet and still, we in an unknown city where no record deals/ Had ever filled somebody’s pockets, that’s when I clocked it/ If they won’t come to me, I’ll go to them and make a profit/ I took it up top, now can you visualize the optics?/ The only southern n—a that New York ever adopted up”
Song: “and the whole world is the Ville”
J. Cole really decided to go to college in New York City with the hopes of eventually getting a record deal — and not only did it happen, he was one of the first people Jay-Z signed post-Roc-A-Fella. You can feel or say what you want about Cole, but his lore is impressive.
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“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 s—t to me”
Song: “I Love Her Again”
Cole explains that rap seduced him, Drake, and Kendrick to finally take the crown for themselves. Him realizing this is maybe one of the reasons he decided to bow out during that fateful day at Dreamville Fest back in 2024.
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“All of y’all n—as is p—y, you shoot at the opps and run from the cops/And I don’t get it/ I ain’t suggesting you fire your weapon at 12, but hell/ Why in the f—k do we feel that n—s that’s lookin’ like us who deserve to be killed?/ Meanwhile Capitol Hill been makin’ it easy for them to go stuff us in cells/ I ain’t no preacher for real, I just like to cut on the mic’ and start lettin’ it spill/ And I’ve been leavin’ a trail, you play all my albums and find you a letter revealed/ This a suicidе note, come herе, look what I wrote, I’m ’bout to kill myself/ F—k J. Cole, I don’t even want this role, wanna rebuild myself”
Song: “Bunce Road Blues”
Now that you’ve listened to this album, go back to The Come Up and listen to everything after it to understand what he’s saying. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean that he’s retiring, and only means that he’ll be closing this chapter of his life and career.
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“I’m No. 1, you gettin’ the gist?/ Anything lower, you better reconsider your list/ Play my song when I’m gone, I’ma still be a myth/ Even God gon’ wonder how the f—k did he exist?/ I mean, could he have just slipped through the cracks?/ Ain’t let a n—a into heaven so I went through the back/ And when I entered, I saw a old friend that I dapped/ He said, ‘Please, n—a, kick one of them infinite raps’”
Song: “39 Intro”
I appreciate that he still wants to rap like this in the traditional rap sense. However, he has a mighty high ladder to climb after the last couple years Kendrick had. We’ll have to see how this project holds up by the end of the year. Maybe we’ll be seeing Cole at the Grammys in 2026.
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“Caught a lot of bodies, so my closet, it got skeletons/ Don’t believe me? Call your favorite rapper for the evidence/ Rolls-Royce, please don’t sell these rappers no more Cullinans/ They unoriginal, and plus I know they don’t be budgetin’”
Song: “Two Six”
Most rappers do tend to cop the same couple cars. The Rolls-Royce Cullinan and Lamborghini Urus are two perfect examples.
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“Queue the saga, the root of all the/ Evil ain’t the paper with the eagle, but what people would do for dollars/ Let off a troop of hollows from German Rugers, they used to do the honors/ Congruent with s—t that I do to rhymers/ On Deuteronomy, ain’t s—t n—s can do but honor me/ What I’m quotin’ is God sculpted, come view the pottery/ I blaze by graveyards and destitute economies/ Full of thug bones for refusin’ to move in harmony/ Drug traffickin’, slugs blastin’, we move accordingly/ And run faster than blood travels through human arteries/ We know exactly what it means when n—s show .9s, .22s, .45s, we studyin’ numerology, n—a””
Song: “WHO TF IZ U”
This right here is Cole at his best. No further notes.
