The hunt for Cole, though, is the rapper in the mirror. The music exerts a sense of conquest, domination, and stardom-he’s embodying a rap titan who is No. Looking back on both The Blueprint and The Blueprint 2, lyrically, war is on his mind. Going blow for blow with Nas was necessary for Jay because there was no risk, no danger, no stakes without him. Rap is a jungle of hunters, and only by hunting can competitors keep their edge. “I had to go picking fights to get that excitement,” he admitted, an honest confession about rap and how the artists have to push themselves.
He was two years and two albums removed from his beef with Nas, a battle he intentionally pushed to its boiling point. This album is more about him than any listener, as he goes against the playlist-focused, variety pack LPs that force rappers to be everything to everyone.ĭuring The Black Album press run, Jay-Z confessed to The New York Timesthat his withdrawal from the limelight was a byproduct of boredom. He did not care to please the audience here. He sings for the R&B lovers, he raps for the hip hop heads, he makes hits for the radio and playlist consumers, and so on and so forth. When Drake makes an album, he wants to please every sector of his fanbase. On The Off-Season, Cole is selfish in ways that an artist like Drake isn’t.
What Cole discovered through the years is how multi-platinum, GRAMMY-winning success can be a trap once it relieves the symptoms that inspired one to chase glory in the first place. He’s competing against the comfort of success. He talks at length about how this album, much like the current period of his career he just entered, dubbed The Fall Off Era, is based on the challenge of exerting himself as a competitor. He goes bar for bar, not plaque for plaque, approaching the craft as the accomplishment.Ĭomparing rap to basketball is a major theme in both the SLAM cover story and the Applying Pressure: The Off-Season documentary. It represents pushing yourself,” he shared with SLAM magazine before the album’s release. “It represents the practice, the training, the drills, the intensity, the craft. His earnest lyricism ebbs and flows through the song, establishing that for Cole, how this isn’t just an album, it’s a mentality. It’s Herculean in sound, projecting invincibility, with a hook-less attack from the Carolina rapper. But in the streaming era, we get The Off-Season.
#One more light album review for free
Any major label would have shelved this album in the early 2010s, or released it for free much like Roc Nation and Dreamville did with 2011 mixtape Friday Night Lights. He goes bar for bar, not plaque for plaque, approaching the craft as the accomplishment.Ī mixtape is often the medium for this brand of proficient, non-commercial rap songs. Sure, “100 Milli” and “Amari” have single potential, but they weren’t made to be the next “ No Role Modelz” or “ Middle Child.” At 36 years old, a father of two, and prizewinner of every rap accomplishment worth achieving, the focus here is technique.
There’s no real attempts at making catchy records with memorable hooks.
For Cole, each song represents a collection of drills. Think of The Off-Season as a workout session. The performance of rapping is athletic by nature, and Cole obsesses over the fundamentals on his sixth studio project, zeroing in on punchlines, similes, metaphors, storytelling, and multi-syllable flow patterns. Cole’s new album, The Off-Season, is dedicated to form.
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