J. Cole Honors Nipsey Hussle & Pimp C in First 'The Off-Season' Cut "i n t e r l u d e"

J.Cole has released the first song from his upcoming The Off-Season album.

He's back.

On Friday morning, J.Cole released the first single from his up-coming The Off-Season album. The song is "i n t e r l u d e" and it was produced by Tommy Parker and T-Minus.

On the track, which is only about two minutes long, J. Cole spits an extended verse where he talks about his come-up, capping things off shouting out Nipsey Hussle and Pimp C:

"My homie' homie got out on parole

He sold more Coca-Cola than the soda industry

Summertime bring the coldest winter breeze

Hella blues like the Rollin' 60's

Christ went to Heaven aged thirty-three

And so did Pimp C and so did Nipsey"

J. Cole has a more polarizing reputation on the internet. And there were mixed reactions to the line:

According to J. Cole, the plan was originally to release The Off-Season "all at once" on May 14th. But he decided to do a last minute audible.

"i n t e r l u d e" is Cole's first song since he dropped "The Climb Back" and "Lion King on Ice," then said to be tracks from The Fall Off.

In December 2020, Cole posted a list of goals to accomplish for his self-proclaimed The Fall Off era. At the time, the list-in-progress included feature verses, the Dreamville compilation project Revenge of the Dreamers 3, The Off-Season, an unspecified project titled It's A Boy, and finally, The Fall-Off.

"I still got some goals I gotta check off [before] I scram," he wrote, further hinting at the prospect of retirement upon the release of the final project.

The Off-Season comes over three years since the release of Cole's fifth studio album, KOD. Should the album hit the top of the Billboard charts, it'd be J.Cole's sixth Billboard number-one record.

This story was updated on Friday May 7th.