Review Summary: The best J.Cole album in years.
So last week I went to McDonalds and saw they had a new promotion for a J.Cole meal. “Wow” I thought. The Travvy Patty was pretty cool and the Saweetie meal gave me bubble guts but I wanted to give the J. Cole meal a chance. I bought the J Cole meal and it turned out to be a plain hot dog and a cup of tap water. I didn’t even know they sold hot dogs at McDonalds. J Cole’s musical taste is not far off from the “dinner” I described. At best, it is fairly inoffensive rap for old-heads and boom-bap dicksuckers. At worst, it’s obnoxiously preachy and fake-woke, complete with bars so corny it makes drake look like a hardened thug. J. Cole’s reputation as a no-nonsense, humble lyricist is hilariously over exaggerated. His newest album, The Off Season, is 40 minutes of the most undercooked and forgettable rap music of the year.
Before I explain why this album is so mid, I will throw J.Cole a bone. My biggest criticism of previous Cole projects has been his unbearable self-righteousness and his two-dimensional attempts at crafting emotional depth. 4 Your Eyez Only was basically, “guys look at me, I’m tupac. I’m gonna die like tupac guys look at me!!!” Imagine Doug Walker comparing himself to Jesus in the Wall video, this is not far off. With J.Cole’s embarrassing feud with noname last summer I expected J.Cole to get even more annoying and self-indulgent in his half-baked political themes. Thankfully, The Off Season doesn’t go this route. Cole’s newest album tones back the narcissistic preachiness in favor of a more personal account of Cole’s life. J. Cole tries to diversify his sound as well, teaming up with some unexpected features like Lil Baby and 21 Savage. While Cole is one of the most overrated artists of this generation, he does deserve some credit for trying something different and not falling for the same mistakes that plagued his earlier work. This might be one of Cole’s strongest albums yet (which isn’t saying much).
While this album is certainly an improvement compared to Cole’s previous work, Cole is still mediocre at best on the mic. This album also really ramps up the self-absorbed braggadocio and “flex bars” that Cole and his fanbase have criticized in the past. On “punchin the clock” J Cole delivers a straight cornbread bar in “I got more cribs than habitat for humanity”. This line is coming from the guy that obnoxious j cole stans will claim to be “the most humble rapper in the game”. J.Cole’s not humble he just dresses like jeff bridges in the big Lebowski. “The Climb Back” features Cole moaning about how people don’t think he’s the GOAT and how he’s tired of people less successful than him flaunting cash. This is just the same narcissism and whiny self entitled energy that J. Cole stans conveniently ignore when they call him “humble”. J. Cole’s warbled, off-key singing voice in “100 mil” is so bad I fell out of my chair laughing. “The GOAT” my ass. “pride is the devil” features yet another off-beat, choppy J. Cole vocal that ruins the beat before it can even get started. The vocals here are just absolutely strained and really some of the worst work Cole has done. It feels like Cole is almost losing track of the beat on some of these songs. Not sure how people can even argue that Cole is a technical rapper anymore when he mutters through his verses and falls asleep on the mic half the time. This ties into the biggest flaw of the album – The Off Season is just fucking boring. Sure, it lacks the obnoxious preachiness and woe-is-me attitude of previous Cole albums, but it fails to replace it with anything of substance besides flexing and the stereotypical “come up” story that Cole has retread for the last decade. Cole’s efforts to experiment come off more as failed attempts to throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. I’ve listened to this album twice now and still barely have a clue what the fuck it’s supposed to be about besides “the struggle”. None of the songs stick with me, while it's not offensively bad it's not enjoyable either. The Off Season is forgettable, watered down, and sorely lacks replay value.
J Cole’s return tape, “The Off Season”, is fittingly titled. The album came out 6 months ago and since then has been completely overshadowed and forgotten by literally everyone else in the rap game bar Kendrick dropping. While this isn’t even close to the worst drop of 2021 it is arguably the least memorable one. Even obnoxious 16 year old white nicotine addicted j cole stans who think they’re gonna “make it out the trenches” aka their parents house in an affluent suburb forgot cole dropped this year. To make this album even more annoying, the song title naming convention is absolute cringe. I can understand artists using all caps or all lowercase for artistic effect. But man, w h a t . t h e . f u c k . i s. t h i s. g a r b a g e. Good luck looking up these songs on spotify or apple music. The production is also weirdly muffled and low quality at times. Even Playboi Carti’s projects have higher production value and instrumental depth than these 4-bar loops. I feel like I’m listening to a project that a 17 year old J. Cole would have made. Actually scratch that I liked J Cole more when he was a scrappy teenager completely ripping off the College Dropout, not whatever the fuck this is. Off Season is a huge improvement over J Coles last few projects and I appreciate that he tried to change things up but its still aggressively mid and a complete snoozer. This is based and the word of the biggle boys.
