J. Cole is back in full stride, and he’s leaning into a concept-heavy approach that feels true to form.
The Dreamville rapper dropped a new track this week as part of the rollout for his long-awaited album The Fall Off. The release is labeled “Disc 2 – Track 2” and arrived with a visually striking music video that opens with a written message from Cole reflecting on the album’s 10-year journey.
The text reads like a personal manifesto, with Cole explaining that the project has been “handcrafted” over the past decade and describing it as something he owed both himself and hip-hop.
When the song begins, Cole walks listeners through his story, making a bold creative choice by rapping about his life in reverse.
That idea carries straight into the video, which shows Cole in a room as time seems to rewind around him. Movements, scenes, and visuals all play backward, reinforcing the feeling that he’s reliving his life in reverse.
The visuals perfectly mirror the song’s theme, unfolding like a memoir told from the ending back to the start.
“My life, I see it in reverse,” Cole raps as the track opens, kicking things off with a chilling moment that begins with his death. “I first appeared in a hearse,” he continues, painting a picture of a funeral and grieving family before the story rewinds decades into the past.
From there, Cole runs fans through a reverse highlight reel, moving backward through late-career achievements, a sense of purpose, fatherhood, relationships, fame, temptation, life on tour, and the pressures of the industry, before rewinding all the way back to his childhood.
The timeline continues collapsing as Cole mentions taking off a wedding ring, late nights at clubs, the early grind, and eventually the spark of his rap dreams, closing at the very beginning of his life as he reflects on his father re-entering the picture and his identity taking shape.
The track lands as Cole officially turns up the heat on his next full-length release. On Wednesday (Jan. 14), he dropped a teaser trailer for The Fall Off, confirming the long-awaited album will arrive on Feb. 6. The project will mark his official follow-up to 2021’s The Off-Season and his 2024 Might Delete Later mixtape.
