After a long wait, J. Cole finally unexpectedly releases a song from his newest album, Off Season, titled i n t e r l u d e, which shows a whole new side of J. Cole that the world had never heard before this short two-minute track.

First of all, it hasn’t really been so long since J. Cole has released a single, though his last two singles were for the album his fans had been waiting for titled The Fall Off. The last song off his last studio album, 2018’s K.O.D, was titled Intro to The Fall Off. Skip ahead to 2020, and J. Cole releases two new singles, both from The Fall Off. At that point, we were sure we were getting this heavily-teased album within weeks, as J. Cole does with every release. But nothing, all we got was radio silence. Both of those even followed another single that belonged to no other project, Middle Child. Out of the blue, Jermaine comes back to Twitter to reveal his album! Alas! We’re finally getting… Off Seasons? Huh? That’s not The Fall Off! Just after this, J. Cole reveals that though he wished to release the entire project as one, he’d tease the world once more with a new single, mentioning that this album was years in the making. This has been the longest gap between albums, and apparently this has nothing to do with another album that Cole was working on, but finally we have a glimpse into this huge project of J. Cole. So how does it hold up?

Really damned well.

I n t e r l u d e is short without feeling rushed. It has a monotone rap introducing the sample-based beat, and then he starts singing. I’ve been following J. Cole pretty extensively since 2014 Forest Hills Drive and I can’t recall a single time Jermaine has ever done this kind of melodic rapping before, not with the finesse that he practices in i n t e r l u d e.  The melody is catchy, and fits perfectly the backing track. He does a wonderful job complimenting the rhythm gluing the track together. The song progresses beautifully, especially since it’s so short, it wastes no time with repetitive choruses: the song has something to say, and it just says it. It really feels like a linear experience in a way a lot of songs don’t really bear, which makes looping this song all the more satisfying. I don’t even think this is one of the main songs from the album, considering the title, and yet it still sounds just as good as any other J. Cole songs.

I had different expectations for K.O.D. when it first came out, and I admit that it’s impeded my enjoyment for the album. Nevertheless, I was very excited for what Cole was going to put out in the future, and for me personally, just from this single, I really feel like Off Season will be much more to my likings, which is making me so incredibly excited for this project. It’s a new taste of J. Cole that seems both fresh and modern all at once, something that often feels mutually exclusive. 

Author: Nicholas Gaudet

Music producer and writer from Dieppe, Canada.