J. Cole's The Fall Off is Letting the Girls Shake Something.
- pearlsunclutched
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
The misogynistic rapper J. Cole may win over his female fans with new album The Fall Off.
Article by Andrea Jefferson
For the official song, you can click here.
This is one of my favorite songs from The Fall Off because admittedly being a female J. Cole fan usually means having to spit along to the grittiest tracks with him; but for his retirement album, he’s finally allowing us to rest in our femininity and bop along.
The Fall Off
Ten years in the making (although I have shared my theory that it's been even longer if you visit the channel), the 41-year-old rapper (born Jan 28, 1985) finally dropped his long-anticipated album "The Fall Off" on February 02, 2026. 2/6 is a significant reference to the rapper's hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina; United States. Aside from unapologetically repping voices from his hometown, Cole has not hesitated on this album to give us more intimate imagery of his post-marital affairs, something he avoided in previous projects due to his long-term committed relationship. "Could paint a picture of the game but my girl would see. Gotta ask myself what mean the world to me..." the rapper professed on "L.A.nd of the Snakes", the third track on his debut studio album Born Sinner.
Issues Remaining Faithful
The Fayetteville native has been candid about his infidelities proclaiming himself as an addict on tracks like "Kevin's Heart" from his fourth and surprise studio album K.O.D. Kevin Hart, while still a beloved comedian, has himself been the face of public affairs across multiple marriages. The song testifies to that commonality between the two men implying that they both share a similar heart and thus a similar way of expressing love. Still, even though the artist acknowledged his experiences with other women in previous projects, he opted out of painting the more tender and dare say romantic moments.
Before his sixth and one [of the] most controversial album(s) gave way to the infamous "7 Minute Drill", a response to Grammy winning fellow rap artist Kendrick Lamar's verse on "Like That" by Future and producer Metro Boomin', Jermaine Lamarr Cole known publicly as J. Cole, rapped on the preceding album The Off-Season about a much more personal matter in which he proudly boasted "Ain't doing no dirt no more, I stopped creeping six years ago. Fun f*cking them h*es until you realize that you is the h*e."("Hunger on Hillside").
Trust Rebuilt
The artist has made notable strides to showcase his growth and vulnerability while still trying to protect his family. It's because of possible work behind the scenes reassuring his wife that he is a man of his word that the artist can now speak on the outside women in a less condescending way than previously. After all, another pattern in the artist's music is referencing the shame of his affairs in a way that penalizes the availability of women to him rather than solely condemning his own previous lack of self-control. With those issues behind him, hopefully the two have repaired their relationship, making it possible for his retirement album to be a full expression of his life and career, which fairly includes the influences of the women he creeped with.
Up until this point, they've been more of background objects or a stain on the rapper's otherwise mostly clean public persona rather than fully realized human beings with attachments and attractions to the rapper that may exceed the "lust" and "sluttiness" he references on "The Inevitable Fall Off". We get to see him mack and be nervous on this album, and his ability to be less strict on this album gave breathing room to danceable R&B-esque tracks like "The Let Out" and "Bombs in the Ville/Hit the Gas."
Female Fans Can Relax Too
I don't know about J. Cole's other female fans, but like with several of my favorite male artists, there is a tinge of discomfort listening to them rag on "certain types of women" while pedestalizing women like us here at Pearls Unclutched who are goal-oriented, smart, and care about deeper issues than our appearances and social media comparisons. The so-called bad women that sleep with them quickly are supposed to be considered shallow and vulture-like. There is a level of cognitive dissonance that has to exist in order to enjoy hip-hop as a woman and to not constantly question the absurdity of rappers blaming others for their own shortcomings.
Female rappers aren't much better in this regard, especially considering that most of them are selling sexually-suggestive themes in their music and appearance while still trying to do damage control to their public images. They often use justifications such as large sums of money or notoriety for why they can be tied to multiple high-profile men sometimes with little-to-no-gaps between relationships but "regular" women are "broke h*es" if they do the relative same. The same women they're insulting provide the vital support for their careers making stan pages, requesting their music in clubs, and keeping the sexy aesthetic rappers often plagiarize from them monetizable and mainstream.
Still, it's a big step to see an artist like J. Cole try adding nuance to the personas of women because the labels of "perfect woman" or "unlovable skank" are simply not fleshed out enough and quite frankly, are exhausting for female listeners such as myself to enjoy without a side-eye. He's finally giving women room to let their hair down, dance, and just be girls on this new album, and I'm proud.
Andrea Jefferson is a writer, filmmaker, and entrepreneur from Mississippi. She has had prose and poetry published in various literary journals and magazines such as High Shelf Press and Literary Orphans. Her debut poetry chapbook, Stray Curls and Dirty Laundry (2018) is available on Amazon.
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