J. Cole has shared the backstory behind the artwork for his upcoming album The Fall-Off — which is a double-disc project featuring multiple covers.
Taking to social media on Thursday (January 29), Cole revealed the alternate CD cover which is an up-to-date portrait of the Dreamville rap star looking pensive in a typically casual outfit.
The main album cover, which surfaced earlier this month, is a grainy photo of Cole’s very first beat-making station in his childhood home in North Carolina.
“The Fall-Off cover that is currently circulating is a picture I took on a disposable camera when I was 15 years old. My very first set up. My first beats were made in that spot, surrounded by my mother’s CD collection that I would comb through looking for samples,” he wrote.
“The first full song that I ever made came to life in that very chair you see in that picture. I sat for hours, in a zone I had never experienced before, until I was done writing a track that I titled ‘The Storm.’ I probably rapped it out loud 50 times back-to-back, my young mind blown that I had actually wrote something ‘this great.’ I called Nervous Reck immediately to ask if I could come over to The Sheltuh to record it.”
He continued: “The mental space I entered writing that joint was a feeling I will attempt to explain, but I doubt I will do it justice. It was the strongest possible combination of creativity (the imagination at work), focus (in search of the next line), faith (belief that the next line will come) and excitement (in knowing this thing being written is truly something special) that I imagine one can’t understand until they’ve been in it.
“It’s like God letting you into Heaven for a few hours. Then, even after it’s time to leave, there is a lasting glow, a high and a fulfilment that stays with you for days… and now every time you sit down to write, you’ll close your eyes, cross your fingers, and hope he’ll open the gates for you again.”
J. Cole then explained that his controversial apology to Kendrick Lamar in 2024 — and the ensuing backlash and endless debates about his place in hip-hop’s “Big Three” — inspired him to expand The Fall-Off into a double-disc album.
“The picture of where it all started for me felt fitting for an album that I made with the ending in mind. It has been the cover of The Fall-Off for about the past 7 years. Perfect in my mind. However, 2 years ago, after the events that still feed the algorithm til this day, I became incredibly re-inspired, and the album slowly blossomed into a double disc as the concept expanded,” he revealed.
“I felt there should be an additional cover that represented that. Something just as strong as the first, with my face on it, so that when I look back in 20 years, I can see an image of who I was at the time I released the project I worked on for so long. This is that cover.”
The Fall-Off will be released on February 6 and will serve as J. Cole’s seventh and final album, capping off one of modern hip-hop’s most storied careers.
“For the past 10 years, this album has been hand crafted with one intention: a personal challenge to myself to create my best work. To do on my last what I was unable to do on my first,” he recently said of the project.
“I had no way of knowing how much time, focus and energy it would eventually take to achieve this, but despite countless challenges along the way, I knew in my heart I would one day get to the finish line. I owed it first and foremost to myself. And secondly, I owed it to hip hop.”
Cole has already given fans a taste of what’s to come with “Disc 2 Track 2,” a conceptual, storytelling track that lays out his life story in reverse — touching on his death, legacy, parenthood, marriage, career milestones and eventually his birth.
The 40-year-old also recently dropped Birthday Blizzard ’26, a surprise four-pack of freestyles hosted by DJ Clue that finds him spitting fire over classic hip-hop beats like Biggie‘s “Who Shot Ya?,” Diddy‘s “Victory” and The LOX‘s “Money, Power & Respect.”
DaBaby album out now way better also Don Toliver and Slime Cry is way better than anything Cole makes
This comment section full of men that mothers need to be slapped.
Anonymous doesn’t have a mother, just two dads.
Peoples make $90+ per hour on the platform. Very! You choose when to work, how much to work, and which projects you’d like to work on. Work is available 24/7/365. If you qualify for our long-running projects and 1am demonstrate high-quality work, there will be virtually unlimited work
available to you… check My Name
You can’t be effin serious?
Totally serious. We know the truth. You have no mother just two dads. You’re a butt baby. You were born by coming out of one of your dad’s ass. You’re ashamed so that’s why you call yourself Anonymous.
Cole on his grown man sh** true king
YoungBoy better
His fanbase is worse than Drakes way more sensitive, hypocritical, and live in a lie now grisly is pretending he is superior to other artists and mad at Kendrick and Drake. Kendrick won and Drake is richer than Cole. Someone send him to Africa with Badou
Sybau
Riley from the boondocks would have hated Cole would have loved to see the show mock rappers like him
Erykah badou puppet how anyone likes this white boy especially black people is beyond me
Cole without Jay Z is nothing and he needed Kanye to produce him.
Kendrick needs to start dissing again out this snake and cut his head
Cut yours 1st
Watch Drake drop Iceman the same day
Drake sucks ass tho
JCole trash and his audience is all femboys and old ladies
YoungBoy better
Tell him go ride his bike to Africa he don’t need a boat he can ride underwater
Hell I don’t ever fall off when I’m riding my boyfriend every night.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Who likes this?
People with seasoned music taste.
Penis has a wonderful taste
More importantly DaBaby dropped a album, Don Toliver dropped a album, Fivio dropped new videos and a diss, Waka Flocka dropped a new song, and Tjay dropped a new song, Rugrat dropped a new song , and Ye sold out concert in Mexico with national security all over the venue and new music. Even Lil Pump put out a song and YoungBoy and Uzi still dominating the play
Soulja Boy dropped a new song too all more important than cole.
SouljaBoy will always be hot garbage
Soulja Boy produced so many artists and pioneered the rap we see now but then again you white hipsters mad at anything
Stop. SouljaBoy is just horrible and a fraud.
New documents tie Jay Z and Pusha T to Weinstein. Bad move working with them Kendrick
Anonymous still butt hurt that Drake got wiped by Kendrick,Pusha T,Rick Ross and Common. Settle down before you have a stroke.
Facts
Pusha T in the Epstein files take your L no one mad Drake lost but this is worse for these guys
Everything for you losers is drake people can hate them both
No one mentioned Drake or Kenny but you kbots going crazy. Thats all you do is mention Drake he will never fall off because of you.
I exposed my butthole to my dad once
Eminem tied too
He drugged a girl for Mariyln Manson. Obama guilty too.
Watch Dre going to be exposed too. Kendrick is done.
I expose myself to my Catholic priest and now I’m bottom altar boy.
Anonymous is a 🏠🅾️
Cole can’t sell a arena neither can Kendrick.
I sell my ass to my uncles every weekend.
The album is called ‘the fall off’ Nuff said!
the fall off……..?? i listened to one track it is a good listen……….. but lets see the money before the fall off homey
I see the money every time I bend over. Men love me. They call me the crack of dawn.
one album of the pains and struggles of a black millionaire was not enough, make it two.
YoungBoy better! Slime Cry on replay watch him drop another album.
Yeah no his mentor Jay Z in the Epstein files and this was Cole’s era of RocNation this happened so would not doubt Cole is in it and his connection to Erykah Badou. JID over there snaking as usual birds of a feather
Pusha T on it too and he showed up in matching pink fuzzy suits with his brother and Pharrell another fake gangster and a snake. All these hipsters like the fake rappera like Cole, JID, and Pusha or Eminem.
Bro called everyone gossipers but not himself? The most female type of rapper like he and his audience do not see it
Femboy. This what happens when you have a white liberal woman raising a mixed race boy get a mess and he from NC a complete fraud
I’m a femboy too. Spank me,daddy.
1
Gay
1
Gay
This site sucks