J. Cole has surprise-released a new song titled “cLOUDs,” which sees him reflect on themes such as getting older, the rise of AI and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Premiered through his Algorithm blog on Thursday (February 20), the track was accompanied by a message from the Dreamville rapper which said: “Just wanted to share. made this a few days ago, then i added a second verse and was like ‘man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.’ I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one…”
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Cole added that the song was produced by DZL and Omen, with “small contributions” from himself.
Over the dreamy instrumental, he makes reference to the attempt on Trump’s life last summer which wounded the then-presidential candidate.
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“I’m that bass in your trunk, the bullet that missed Trump / The gun that jammed ’cause it seemed God had other plans,” he raps.
Cole also laments the current state of the world and points the finger at the ultra-rich: “Served on a plate with sirloin steak to billionaires who don’t care the world’s gon’ break / Long as they make money off it, pain brings profit.”
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At the end of his second and final verse, the North Carolina natives tackles artificial intelligence and its threat to the creative arts.
“Don’t buy, subscribe so you can just stream your content / Like rent, you won’t own a thing / Before long, all the songs the whole world sings’ll be generated by latest of AI regimes / As all of our favorite artists erased by it scream / From the wayside, ‘Aye, whatever happened to human beings?'” he spits.
Listen to the song below.
“cLOUDs” is J. Cole’s first offering of 2025 and second since his brief clash with Kendrick Lamar last year.
On the YouTube loosie “Port Antonio,” which dropped last October, Cole addressed his controversial decision to bow out of the battle and apologize to his longtime friend and peer.
“I pulled the plug because I seen where that was ’bout to go / They wanted blood, they wanted clicks to make they pockets grow / They see this fire in my pen and think I’m dodgin’ smoke / I wouldn’t have lost a battle, dawg, I woulda lost a bro / I woulda gained a foe,” he rapped over the same sample used on JAY-Z‘s “Dead Presidents.”
As fans continue to patiently await his seventh album The Fall-Off, Cole dropped a promising hint about new music earlier this week and revealed that he’s been busy in the studio.
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He wrote in a separate blog post: “I knowwww mannnn. I’m off to a bad start with the consistency, but I’ma do better! Watch!! I been locked in on the music while also balancing family life. It’s a juggling act that a blog post wouldn’t do justice in explaining.
“But with that said, I’m back tending to this garden. I think I’m gonna let some other people post on here too, to get the vibes up.”
