It’s time. J. Cole’s The Off-Season arrives at midnight, heralded by an incendiary L.A. Leakers freestyles and a pair of pre-release singles. Hours ahead of the big release, Cole took to Instagram to unveil the official tracklist, which features twelve tracks and (unsurprisingly) no features. At least none that we know of, though it wouldn’t be surprising to see Cole carry on the tradition in that regard.
Of the twelve songs, fans have already seen “i n t e r l u d e” and “the climb back,” the latter of which released all the way back in July of 2020. The project is executive produced by J. Cole, Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus, who is among the many producers contributing to Cole’s cause. On that note, J. Cole also happened to share the fourteen producers involved in the beat-making — Timbaland, Boi-1da, DJ Dahi, Jake One, Frank Dukes, Tae Beast, Maneesh, Wa1o, Sucuki, Coleman, Tommy Parker, Mario Luciano, T-Minus, and himself.
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As it stands, The Off-Season, the first of three J. Cole pre-retirement releases, is among the year’s biggest drops. Based on everything we’ve heard, be it from Cole’s labelmates (Cozz and Bas declared it to be among his best work) or the man himself (who recently teased that his confidence was at an all-time high), he’s at the top of his game. It should be interesting to see how the early reactions unfold, and it should make for one of hip-hop’s most exciting nights so far.
Check out the tracklist and production credits below, and be sure to sound off in the comments with your expectations for The Off-Season.