After a 10-year wait, and a lengthy, incredibly successful rap career, J. Cole has finally dropped The Fall-Off—possibly the last album he’ll ever make. It’s one of the biggest albums of the year, and with 24 songs, we wanted to take our time and digest the content so that we could do it justice. We listened to it in the whip, in the finest studio-quality headphones money can buy, at a perfect 72° on a Sunday afternoon, you name it. And now, it’s time to give the tracks some rankings.
Here are the 10 best songs on J. Cole’s The Fall-Off, and their reasons why, below.
10. “Drum n Bass”
“Drum n Bass” describes Cole being back in his hometown at 29, hitting the club with the homies, and pulling up on some girl he used to know. However, she becomes a distraction, and he forgets to keep his head on a swivel in a dangerous environment. While talking with her, he brushes off a conversation with a dude from back home, not realizing the tensions are rising.
The keys and subtleness of the beat really match the ambiance, and trying to keep things lowkey, before chaos ensues.
9. “The Let Out”
“The Let Out” directly follows “Drum n Bass,” building on the situation that started to develop in the club. After bagging the girl he wanted, he gets approached by a guy who warns him to watch his surroundings. The original dude he brushed off is heated, and might have the switch with him. Okay, we aren’t exactly sure what he has, but Cole definitely wasn’t trying to find out.
As the club is letting out, Cole has to survive and make it across the parking lot to his car. Guitar chords swell, the vocals get layered multiple times over, and shots ring out. The choices he made with the sound paint a distinct picture of the moment, and make the two songs play off of each other perfectly.
8. “What If” (feat. Morray)
Easily the most polarizing song on the album, “What If” envisions a world where 2Pac and Biggie apologized to each other during the East Coast/West Coast beef of the late ’90s. The first verse is dedicated to Big’s hypothetical approach to the situation, complete with rhyme pockets and patterns that mirror the “Hypnotize” rapper’s cadence. The next verse, as you would expect, implements Pac’s elongated delivery and the double-layered vocals he loved to use. From a technical standpoint, it was done well.
The conversation gets a lot more muddy when bringing intention and messaging into question. While, sure, we would love to have legends back, this song in the context of J. Cole’s apology to Kendrick makes it seem like a battle between them would have gone as far as the Biggie and Pac beef, and he apologized to avoid that. That isn’t the case. It also seems like he thinks Kendrick and Drake could apologize before it goes too far, which is much more nuanced than two verses about a past, unrelated situation can tackle.
In the end, Cole simply rapped for his entire career about destroying rappers, dissed one, then apologized. And now he wants to make his stance seem deeper than the actual outcome of the situation. But getting people to talk is a rapper’s job, and he did just that with “What If.”
7. “Two Six”
Following “29 Intro,” Cole makes it abundantly clear that the first disc is an ode to Fayetteville, NC. From the obvious nod to the area code, to the call-and-response nature of the track, everything screams The Ville. On top of that, his flow definitely takes a front seat in this one and showcases why people hold him in such high regard.
“Caught a lot of bodies, so my closet, it got skeletons/Don’t believe me? Ask your favorite rappers for the evidence,” still gets a chuckle after the apology, though. Sorry, it’s still funny! But a fire ass song nonetheless.
6. “39 Intro”
The intro to Disc 39, particularly the first half of the track, is some of the most refreshing Cole instrumentation we’ve ever heard. Portions of it fit within his usual offerings, but when it drops into an indie/punk music break 2 minutes in? That’s where the track really shines.
That said, the second half of “39 Intro” also goes hard as hell. It’s another J. Cole bravado rap, but he sounds completely rejuvenated. Calling himself the GOAT for pure ability, rather than the “I’d kill your favorite rapper with these bars” approach, revives memories of his old hunger—and has significantly more believability.
5. “Bunce Road Blues”
J. Cole’s albums are known for having relatively few features, or none at all, and The Fall-Off follows that trend. However, some of the guests changed songs in their entirety. Cole’s verse was solid, and a brief inclusion of Future interpolating Usher’s “Nice & Slow” broke up the track’s potential monotony. But then, Tems carried so crazy that it genuinely elevated the song to one of the best on the project. Her verse meshes perfectly with The Alchemist’s upbeat yet vibey production and is one of Cole’s best choices on the album.
4. “SAFETY”
In a detailed letter describing some of the album’s elements, Cole talks about the back cover, which features a collage of hip-hop posters on the wall of his old bedroom. He said that a lot of the artists would be part of the album in some way, and his sample choices and interpolations proved just that.
Over a fantastic beat that samples “U.N.I.T.Y.” by Queen Latifah, the story is told from the perspective of an old friend trying to reach out to Cole through multiple voicemails. The way the song is structured shows the caller growing up alongside Cole, but from afar, highlighting why he felt the need to go home.
3. “The Fall-Off is Inevitable”
Released as “Disc 2 – Track 2” before the album dropped, “The Fall-Off Is Inevitable” threw rap fans for a loop. The track shows Cole rapping the most intricate details of his life, but in reverse.
The concept has been done before, sure, but his retelling of events that his fans can specifically pinpoint—rather than something that happened in a rapper’s life behind the scenes—really made it hit home. And the video just added a great layer to the artistry.
2. “Poor Thang”
While he might have bowed out of a potential fade with Kendrick Lamar amidst the “7 Minute Drill” and apology fiasco, the dudes he grew up around that try to come at him don’t get that same luxury. Cole is easily one of the biggest rappers of all-time, and had already gone platinum multiple times by age 29—when Disc 29 takes place. Some local Fayetteville rapper dissing was a foolish mistake.
He spends the first half of the track talking about how beefing and violence creates a cycle of pain, but decides that if homie from NC really wants it to go that way, it could. Then proceeds to send a blitz to whoever the track was about, over a quintessential Cole beat. It’s fun hearing him in that bag, and we can see why his fans would put him up against anyone they see fit.
1. “I Love Her Again”
In this flip on Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” Cole paints a vivid picture of how hip-hop has changed throughout his career, as well as his interactions with the art form. Drawing parallels to a girl he used to holler at, he talks about falling in and out of love with rap based on what’s going on in his life, what “she” has been up to lately, and the overall perception it gives off.
The song travels from New York to Atlanta, a change that hip-hop really made between 2007 and 2010, and that area has been the prominent birthplace of new artists since. He described the sound going from Trap, to Mumble Rap, to the surge of women in rap having the freedom to be more body-forward—all of which he initially judged. But he fully checked his own hypocrisy, stating that he loved those things about it early on and only wanted it to stay how he liked it.
He wraps up the story by acknowledging that hip-hop is an outlet for every new generation, so it’ll perpetually change. Accepting it is the only way to keep the love going.
