J. Cole Drops “Interlude” Off His Upcoming ‘The Off-Season’ Album

J. Cole and the Dreamville Records team have been teasing the North Carolina emcee’s next body of work for months. With the release of the new track titled “Interlude” (stylized as “i n t e r l u d e”), The Off-Season era has finally begun.

“Told myself I would drop the album all at once. Sometimes you gotta say f### it tho. New song tonight. 12 o’clock. ‘i n t e r l u d e’ from The Off-Season,” tweeted J. Cole on Thursday afternoon.

Jermaine Cole kept his word by letting loose the brand new track produced by himself, T-Minus, and Tommy Parker on Friday morning. The Dreamville leader also told his 14 million Twitter followers, “See you in a week.”

The Off-Season is scheduled to arrive on Friday, May 14. Cole’s forthcoming work of art will be his first full-length solo effort since 2018’s KOD. He also curated 2019’s Revenge of the Dreamers III compilation and presented 2020’s Lewis Street EP which hosted the singles “Lion King On Ice” and “The Climb Back.”

Hype for The Off-Season kicked into overdrive after J. Cole uploaded a photo of a notebook page on Instagram in December. His post featured a handwritten note with the phrases “The Fall Off Era,” “The Off-Season,” “It’s A Boy,” and “The Fall Off.”

Then in January of 2021, Dreamville Records co-founder Ibrahim Hamad further excited the J. Cole fanbase by sharing an Instagram photo of Cole seemingly filming some kind of visual content. Hamad’s IG caption simply read, “Locked in. The Off-Season.”

Following those developments, Dreamville recording artist Bas all but confirmed the release date for The Off-Season with a post-and-delete at the end of April. The New York City-bred rapper wrote on Instagram, “ The Off-Season. Pack your bags.  In two weeks.”

Just know this was years in the making. My new album The Off-Season available everywhere 5/14 https://t.co/aBw4po8fvx Told myself I would drop the album all at once. Sometimes you gotta say fuck it tho. New song tonight. 12 o’clock. “i n t e r l u d e” from The Off-Season. https://t.co/aOCOC8F8DC