J. Cole has released the last album of his career, supposedly, and it has been a success. ‘The Fall-Off’ has debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, the seventh album by the American artist to achieve the position, and has displaced Bad Bunny’s ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ to second place in its best week on the charts. A major achievement.
‘The Fall-Off’ has 280,000 units sold in its first week, being the biggest hip hop release in almost a year, since the almost 300,000 units sold by Playboi Carti with ‘MUSIC’. In the same period, ‘I Should Have Thrown More Photos’ has finished its best week in the United States, taking advantage of the Super Bowl effect. Unheard of: Bad Bunny’s album is in second place on the Billboard 200 after having sold 250,000 units. Some would like to.
J. Cole’s album has been talked about for years, but the rollout has been rather brief. The first song of this new era is a great representation of the rapper’s goal with this LP, which is a return to origins. In this way, ‘The Fall-Off is Inevitable’ joins other great pieces of storytelling in hip hop history, with Cole narrating his life backwards without skipping a syllable.
The first official single, however, is ‘Two Six’. It is also the first song as such of a project made up of 24 songs and which is a little under two hours long. The production, by Cole, is totally classic, with a string sample, hungry bars and a minimalist chorus. Plus, a promise to listeners of his new LP: “I’m the future of this rap shit, fuck everything I’ve done in the past / I’m totally over it.”
