Rapper J. Cole’s sixth studio album, his sixth one straight to reach number one on the charts, makes evident why he is one of the most influential rappers of our generation.
Over the course of the tight twelve-track project, “The Off Season,” Cole jumps from high intensity flows in the opening track “95.South” to harmonizing with fellow North Carolina native Morray on “My.Life.” Throughout the tracks that feature Cole harmonizing with his feature artists, his proficiency in rhyming shines through with his masterfully written lyrics.
It is apparent in his track“The Off-Season” that Cole is not going for chart-topping tracks with catchy hooks. He is more focused on lyrics and the meaning behind them throughout the album. This is very impressive, since so many artists today are simply trying to write catchy melodies in order to top the charts. This is fine in most cases, but it is nice to hear an artist let out his emotions and beliefs on an album. That is not to say that Cole’s flows are not catchy, because they most definitely are, but it is clear that he is not following the classic pattern that many other artists follow to produce hit singles.
A pattern that many artists tend to fall into is that they are unable to produce music that sounds distinctly different from song to song. Cole does a good job of not falling into this trap on the album. Even though most of the album follows the same style, there are not any songs that sound the same, making it an interesting listen from start to finish.
Even though this is a very enjoyable album to listen to for the first time, the downfall of it is that the replay ability of many of the songs is not quite there. As previously mentioned, one of the great things about this album is that it is not trying to be a collection of hits for the summer. Due to that, there will not be many people, besides the die-hard fans, who will have this album on repeat for the coming months.
This is an album that long-time J. Cole fans will really enjoy, given that he gives a raw take on experiences that he has had and some of his opinions on the world. However, the average listener will probably not get as much enjoyment from it as they would have from some of Cole’s previous albums, which is why this will go down as one of the less talked-about endeavors in his musical career.