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The Off-Season
The Off-Season is the sixth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was released on May 14, 2021, by Dreamville Records, Roc Nation and Interscope Records. The album was executive produced by Cole, Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus. It also features guest vocals from Morray, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Bas, and 6lack. It became Cole's first album since 2013's Born Sinner to contain guest features. Production was handled by multiple producers, including Cole himself, T-Minus, Timbaland, Boi-1da, Frank Dukes, DJ Dahi, Tae Beast, and Jake One, among others.
The Off-Season was supported by one single, "My Life", and promotional singles, "The Climb Back" and "Interlude". The Off-Season was accompanied by a twelve-minute short film upon its release titled, Applying Pressure: The Off-Season Documentary.
The Off-Season received positive reviews from critics and topped the US Billboard 200. It sold 282,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, earning Cole his sixth consecutive number-one album in the country. At the time of its release, The Off-Season achieved the largest streaming week of 2021, accumulating over 325.5 million streams. Four songs from The Off-Season debuted in the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100; every song on the album charted in the top forty. The album scored a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Also, "Pride Is the Devil" was nominated for Best Melodic Rap Performance, while "My Life" was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.
On August 7, 2018, Cole released "Album of the Year (Freestyle)", accompanied by a music video. Cole announced The Off-Season, which will precede the release of what was originally planned to be his sixth studio album, The Fall Off. In the description to the video, it reads: "The Off Season coming soon... All roads lead to The Fall Off - Cole". In an interview with Billboard in September 2018, Cole announced his plans to take off time in 2019 from touring to finish work on The Off-Season, The Fall Off, and his Kill Edward project.
On December 29, 2020, Cole posted a photo on Instagram where he documented a list titled, "The Fall Off Era". On the list crossed out, was features and Revenge of the Dreamers III. Also listed, but not crossed out was two projects, The Off-Season and It's a Boy, which he intends to release ahead of The Fall Off. The caption of the post read: "I still got some goals I gotta check off for' I scram...", alluding to a potential retirement.
As one of the executive producers of the album, T-Minus began producing with Cole in 2017, collaborating on "Kevin's Heart", "Middle Child", and "Lion King on Ice". He spoke on producing for Cole in an interview saying, "Cole is very much a producer, so he likes to direct where the music is going as far as arrangement, or the bounce, or the feeling that he wants to have. So he gave me a bunch of ideas and pointers for what he wanted to do." When asked about Cole's creative mindset for the mixtape, he said: "Cole is tapped into every aspect of the creation of the record. He writes all of his own music, writes all of the songs. He produces, he mixes; he's super involved [...] he's just that guy who's very grounded when it comes to the creation of the entire record, which is dope because when I create with him, he's very much directing where he wants the record to go."
The cover art was organized by Dreamville's creative director Felton Brown and shot in North Carolina by Justin Francis. The artwork shows Cole standing in front of a basketball hoop on fire, referencing the basketball theme on the covers of his mixtapes The Warm Up (2009) and Friday Night Lights (2010), and debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story (2011). Brown told Complex magazine:
We finished the album artwork two weeks before we announced it. We flew down to North Carolina and went through a few different renditions of creative and it got down to where the album was creatively, sonically, and the overall tone. We wanted something that was a little more encompassing of the whole feel of the album, so because of that, we had to go back [to North Carolina] again. Basically, Ib [Hamad] had an idea that he wanted me to flesh out, and usually that process—the vetting, figuring out who we’re going to use—takes some time, but because we didn’t have any time I knew I had to lean on things that I trust. We can’t fly him [J. Cole] somewhere to shoot it, so we’re going to shoot close to home. We leaned inwards. We reached out to Scott [Lazer], and he recommended a production team that we got, and I reached out to a close friend of mine who is an incredible photographer that I’ve worked with in my years in advertising named Justin Francis. He’s an incredible photographer, director, and cinematographer. I was just like, “Look, it’s fourth quarter, I need someone who’s super multi-disciplinary like me and who’s very agile on his feet,” and we talked through the whole night about the project and idea, put together a crazy presentation, and sent it to Cole and Ib. I wanted to meet and talk about it on the phone, but Cole was like, “Nah, that looks good. Let’s just get to it,” which was great because usually he’d want to talk about it. But I’m thinking, since he’s finishing recording it anyway, he looked at the game plan and saw it was solid, and he just gave me the blessing. We hit the ground running, Justin brought out this $50,000 camera, we got the pyrotechnic guys and got going.
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The Off-Season
The Off-Season is the sixth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was released on May 14, 2021, by Dreamville Records, Roc Nation and Interscope Records. The album was executive produced by Cole, Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus. It also features guest vocals from Morray, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Bas, and 6lack. It became Cole's first album since 2013's Born Sinner to contain guest features. Production was handled by multiple producers, including Cole himself, T-Minus, Timbaland, Boi-1da, Frank Dukes, DJ Dahi, Tae Beast, and Jake One, among others.
The Off-Season was supported by one single, "My Life", and promotional singles, "The Climb Back" and "Interlude". The Off-Season was accompanied by a twelve-minute short film upon its release titled, Applying Pressure: The Off-Season Documentary.
The Off-Season received positive reviews from critics and topped the US Billboard 200. It sold 282,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, earning Cole his sixth consecutive number-one album in the country. At the time of its release, The Off-Season achieved the largest streaming week of 2021, accumulating over 325.5 million streams. Four songs from The Off-Season debuted in the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100; every song on the album charted in the top forty. The album scored a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Also, "Pride Is the Devil" was nominated for Best Melodic Rap Performance, while "My Life" was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.
On August 7, 2018, Cole released "Album of the Year (Freestyle)", accompanied by a music video. Cole announced The Off-Season, which will precede the release of what was originally planned to be his sixth studio album, The Fall Off. In the description to the video, it reads: "The Off Season coming soon... All roads lead to The Fall Off - Cole". In an interview with Billboard in September 2018, Cole announced his plans to take off time in 2019 from touring to finish work on The Off-Season, The Fall Off, and his Kill Edward project.
On December 29, 2020, Cole posted a photo on Instagram where he documented a list titled, "The Fall Off Era". On the list crossed out, was features and Revenge of the Dreamers III. Also listed, but not crossed out was two projects, The Off-Season and It's a Boy, which he intends to release ahead of The Fall Off. The caption of the post read: "I still got some goals I gotta check off for' I scram...", alluding to a potential retirement.
As one of the executive producers of the album, T-Minus began producing with Cole in 2017, collaborating on "Kevin's Heart", "Middle Child", and "Lion King on Ice". He spoke on producing for Cole in an interview saying, "Cole is very much a producer, so he likes to direct where the music is going as far as arrangement, or the bounce, or the feeling that he wants to have. So he gave me a bunch of ideas and pointers for what he wanted to do." When asked about Cole's creative mindset for the mixtape, he said: "Cole is tapped into every aspect of the creation of the record. He writes all of his own music, writes all of the songs. He produces, he mixes; he's super involved [...] he's just that guy who's very grounded when it comes to the creation of the entire record, which is dope because when I create with him, he's very much directing where he wants the record to go."
The cover art was organized by Dreamville's creative director Felton Brown and shot in North Carolina by Justin Francis. The artwork shows Cole standing in front of a basketball hoop on fire, referencing the basketball theme on the covers of his mixtapes The Warm Up (2009) and Friday Night Lights (2010), and debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story (2011). Brown told Complex magazine:
We finished the album artwork two weeks before we announced it. We flew down to North Carolina and went through a few different renditions of creative and it got down to where the album was creatively, sonically, and the overall tone. We wanted something that was a little more encompassing of the whole feel of the album, so because of that, we had to go back [to North Carolina] again. Basically, Ib [Hamad] had an idea that he wanted me to flesh out, and usually that process—the vetting, figuring out who we’re going to use—takes some time, but because we didn’t have any time I knew I had to lean on things that I trust. We can’t fly him [J. Cole] somewhere to shoot it, so we’re going to shoot close to home. We leaned inwards. We reached out to Scott [Lazer], and he recommended a production team that we got, and I reached out to a close friend of mine who is an incredible photographer that I’ve worked with in my years in advertising named Justin Francis. He’s an incredible photographer, director, and cinematographer. I was just like, “Look, it’s fourth quarter, I need someone who’s super multi-disciplinary like me and who’s very agile on his feet,” and we talked through the whole night about the project and idea, put together a crazy presentation, and sent it to Cole and Ib. I wanted to meet and talk about it on the phone, but Cole was like, “Nah, that looks good. Let’s just get to it,” which was great because usually he’d want to talk about it. But I’m thinking, since he’s finishing recording it anyway, he looked at the game plan and saw it was solid, and he just gave me the blessing. We hit the ground running, Justin brought out this $50,000 camera, we got the pyrotechnic guys and got going.