By Dylan Masvidal | Staff Writer
Dr. J. Cole, tell me you’re not just a pedagogue.
After almost eight years of teasing, the lyricist dubbed Carolina’s finest has released his self-proclaimed swan song.
Cole’s elder-statesman status in the rap game is fascinatingly polarizing, juxtaposed with his contemporaries.
Here’s an artist who’s garnered an extremely loyal fan base and the utmost praise from the genre’s very best for being a torchbearer of hip-hop tradition.
He’s also been labeled as monotonous and too middle-of-the-road by many critics and purists, citing his attempts at socially conscious material to be as profound as a motivational cat poster.
I’ve always leaned towards the former, even during Cole’s headscratching moments.
Sure, his attempts at introspection can come off more pretentious than he realizes, but, and please have mercy on my formative bias, his talent and ability to resonate with listeners as an MC have gotten him this far for a reason.
So imagine my tired expression when “The Fall-Off” fed into virtually every negative complaint levied towards him over the course of his career.
Throughout a 141-minute runtime, I caught myself audibly yawning by the first disc’s end.
There’s no pride being taken in going turncoat; I’m aware of how easy it is to smugly dismantle a J. Cole album for a dopamine hit.
Cole’s signature brand of “humbleness” makes for a terribly unenthusiastic fade to black.
Let’s start with the album’s concept. What is supposed to center around two periods of his life, ages 29 and 39, immediately lets the anachronisms fly on “Run A Train” (“harder than guarding Wemby”) and “WHO TF IZ U” where he name-drops Zane Lowe.
Unassuming missteps like these unveil a larger and familiar elephant in the room: Cole getting too big for his britches.
It doesn’t matter how well-meaning it is anymore; he is simply allergic to releasing a robust collection of tracks with some connective tissue and insists on a grandiose approach, which has yet to work for him.
24 songs masked as personal revelations when in reality, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before from the Fayetteville native.
Even more baffling is Cole being aware of this and cleverly admitting to it (“pardon me if I’ve been sounding like a broken record, I come from the brokest of homes”) but still refusing to expand on it whatsoever.
Take a shot every time he reminisces on “The Fall-Off,” and you’ll have an unresponsive liver.
The strokes of brilliance on this album happen because he stops taking himself so seriously and lets his technical prowess take control, thus naturally reaching catharsis.
“Poor Thang” sees him lighting the booth on fire with an uber-confrontational presence over a killer drum loop and chipmunk soul samples, dressing down a nameless fraudster from his past with ease.
The hypnotic piano on “Drum n Bass” is a stellar backdrop to a multi-syllabic diary entry that would do Kool G Rap justice.
I’d be remiss not to mention the second-half of “Quik Stop” where Cole sounds as if he’s fighting back tears while coming to terms with his responsibility as an artist. That part comes with guaranteed goosebumps.
“The Fall-Off” has a handful of moments to enjoy, just not full songs past disc one.
Cole’s grating singing voice rears its ugly head on “Bombs in the Ville” and puts a blight on disc two’s opening, overshadowing a tasteful electric guitar and fiery rhyme schemes.
Eye-roll after eye-roll as he doubles down on the cracking and croaking, only, as opposed to his past attempts, acoustic instrumentation is now his poison of choice.
Post-retirement Metro Manisms, embarrassing detours and a severe drop in enthusiasm piled up.
It was no longer a fun listening experience; it was a chore.
I was met with an uncomfortable truth once the record’s curtains closed.
J. Cole has been shuffling between the same song topics for nearly two decades, refusing to put a fresh coat of paint over his penmanship.
If he weren’t so sure of their surface-level importance or occasionally zigged instead of zagged, it wouldn’t be a pain.
As someone who never stopped appreciating his contributions to the genre, there’s a real irony to “The Fall-Off” being described by Cole as a full-circle journey from his first project, “The Come Up”.
Instead of an epic, it’s a dog chasing its own tail.
4/10
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