J. Cole Previews ‘The Off-Season’ With New Song ‘Interlude’

J. Cole has dropped new song “Interlude” in advance of the release of his sixth studio album, The Off-Season, which is slated to arrive on May 14th.

“I be coming in peace, but fuck me/Best beware of the others/This shit deep, undercovers creep/This southern heat make unbearable summers,” he raps on the brief new track. “Just last week, seen your mama weep/crying ’cause she don’t wanna bury your brother/The blood leaks while thе EMTs gotta carry her baby like surrogate mothеrs.”

The rapper announced the album earlier this week, but provided few details. “Just know this was years in the making,” he tweeted. Hours before releasing “Interlude” he wrote, “Told myself I would drop the album all at once. Sometimes you gotta say fuck it tho.” The Off-Season follows 2018’s KOD, as well as the 2019 Dreamville Records compilation, Revenge of the Dreamers III.

Last summer, J. Cole released the controversial “Snow on tha Bluff,” which he dropped in the midst of an uprising against police brutality and systemic racism. The song appeared to be, in part, a diss track aimed at Chicago rapper Noname. Noname responded with “Song 33,” a track she later walked back as she didn’t want it to distract from the larger issues she was addressing. “I didn’t have to respond,” she wrote afterwards.

He also released “The Climb Back” and “Lion King on Ice” last year, which he said at the time would appear on his next album, then titled The Fall Off. It’s unclear if those songs are slated for The Off-Season, or if The Fall Off remains a separate project that will be released separately.