Nearly eight years in the making, it’s finally time for The Fall-Off. J. Cole announced the album’s Feb. 6 release date on Wednesday (Jan. 14), sending the Dreamville faithful into a frenzy.
The Fall-Off will serve as Cole’s seventh album and his first LP since 2021’s The Off-Season, which topped the Billboard 200 with 282,000 total album-equivalent units.
Cole set the album’s rollout in motion with a trailer featuring an unreleased track and a narrator detailing issues with how society dissects celebrities and their time in the spotlight, as Cole does everyday activities like enjoying a meal at Waffle House and washing his car.
“Everything is supposed to go away eventually,” the narrator says. “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.”
He continues: “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.”
Cole didn’t waste time following up with a single titled “Disc 2 Track 2,” which finds JC showing his lyrical dexterity with ease, while telling his life’s story backwards, which drew comparisons from fans to Nas’ “Rewind.” There’s even a beat switch to Mobb Deep’s “Drop a Gem on Em” to close it out.
The 40-year-old revealed the album’s cover art, which appears to be Cole’s old studio set-up. And there’s plenty more to come in the weeks leading up to Feb. 6, like how fans believe they found Cole’s The Fall-Off burner account on IG as well.
Even with all of the success, Cole’s career seems to be at a lower-stakes inflection point, as fans are eager to hear what Cole has to say on The Fall-Off — which he initially teased in 2018 — after bowing out of a feud with Kendrick Lamar in 2024 and apologizing to K. Dot on stage at his Dreamville Festival.
At that time, Cole released his “7 Minute Drill” track dissing Kendrick on Might Delete Later — but ended up scrubbing the diss from the mixtape, after which Drake went to battle with Lamar.
Here’s everything we know about The Fall-Off.
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Is This Cole’s Final Act?
J. Cole hinted in 2020 that The Fall-Off could be his last album. He posted a whiteboard on social media with a timeline that included The Off-Season leading into It’s a Boy and finished with The Fall-Off. The album was initially teased by Cole on KOD’s “1985,” which he said was the LP’s intro in 2018.
In a 2018 interview with Angie Martinez, Cole also revealed that his 2016 singles “False Prophets” and “everybody dies” were also originally intended for The Fall-Off.
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The Alchemist, J.I.D. & Possible Collaborators
Collaborators are purely speculative at the moment, but in 2024, The Alchemist was asked about producing tracks for The Fall-Off, and he leaned into the rumors by responding with a zipped-mouth emoji. Dreamville’s J.I.D. also rapped about The Fall-Off, and said the album was “banging” on his God Does Like Ugly track “Sun.”
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The Reverse Storytelling on ‘Track 2’ Pays Homage to Nas
There’s no questioning Cole’s rapping ability; he’s an absolute technician. Jermaine’s elite songwriting was on display with “Disc 2 Track 2,” which finds him telling his life’s story in reverse. The single drew comparisons to Nas’ “Rewind.” Fans also pointed out that the production was a leaked beat meant for Ye and Drake’s scrapped Calabasas is the New Abu Dhabi joint album in 2016.
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A Decade in the Making
It’s been nearly eight years since Cole initially teased The Fall-Off on his 2018 KOD album, but who’s counting? When JC released the “Disc 2 Track 2” single on January 14, the visual was preceded by a disclaimer from Cole about his mentality going into The Fall-Off and how it’s been a decade in the making.
“For the past 10 years, this album has been hand crafted with one intention: a personal challenge to myself to create my best work,” the clip reads. “To do on my last what I was unable to do on my first. I had no way of knowing how much time, focus and energy it would eventually take to achieve this, but despite the countless challenges along the way, I knew in my heart I would one day get to the finish line. I owed it first and foremost to myself. And secondly, I owed it to hip-hop.”
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‘The Fall-Off’ Is a Double-Disc Album
Rumors began to swirl that The Fall-Off is a double-disc album after Cole released “Disc 2 – Track 2” as a possible lead single. The Dreamville boss has yet to release a double album in his career to date, but fans are here for a loaded project, if indeed it’s his last.
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The Cover Art Takes Us Back
Cole also revealed The Fall-Off‘s cover art when announcing the album on Jan. 14. The artwork appears to show a disheveled makeshift studio, or possibly the childhood bedroom he used to record music in while honing his craft growing up.
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Lore Behind Release Date Tied to Fayetteville
J. Cole announced that The Fall-Off will be arriving to kick off Super Bowl weekend on Feb. 6. Numerically, that’s 2/6 in 2026. Fans and the Dissect Podcast pointed out that the 2-6 is a nickname for Cumberland County in North Carolina, which contains Cole’s hometown of Fayetteville.
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