Music
28 Jan 26

J. Cole releases new project Birthday Blizzard ‘26 ahead of The Fall-Off

J. Cole releases new project <i>Birthday Blizzard ‘26</i> ahead of <i>The Fall-Off</i>

Wireless Festival - Day 1 - London. J. Cole performing on the first day of the Wireless Festival, in Finsbury Park, north London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 6th, 2018 URN:37418027 (Press Association via AP Images)

Phineas Collins

The project features five tracks, and follows the release of Cole’s most recent song, ‘Disc 2 Track 2’

J. Cole has released five new tracks as part of a project called Birthday Blizzard ‘26, ahead of the release of his seventh, and possibly final, album, The Fall-Off.

Birthday Blizzard ‘26 was released on thefalloff.com, and is available to download with “pay what you want” pricing (the minimum price is $1).

The release follows Cole’s recent song ‘Disc 2 Track 2’, posted to YouTube with a music video directed by Ryan Doubiago. The song itself covers Cole’s life “in reverse”, starting with Cole saying “I first appeared in a hearse”, and ending with Cole’s mother handing him back to the doctor as a baby, in a style that has been compared to Nas’ ‘Rewind’.

The video, however, opens with a statement about Cole’s upcoming release.

“For the past 10 years, this album has been hand crafted with one intention: a personal challenge to myself to create my best work,” the statement reads. “To do on my last what I was unable to do on my first. I had no way of knowing how much time, focus and energy it would eventually take to achieve this, but despite the countless challenges along the way, I knew in my heart I would one day get to the finish line. I owed it first and foremost to myself. And secondly, I owed it to hip-hop.”

Cole’s most recent studio album, The Off-Season, came out in May of 2021, making it nearly five years since the artist last released an album (not counting his 2024 album Might Delete Later, his foray into that year’s Kendrick-Drake feud, which he subsequently apologised for, saying it “didn’t sit right with [his] spirit.”).

The Fall-Off has been in the works for nearly a decade, according to a 2021 SLAM magazine interview, and caps off what a 2020 post of Cole’s notepad called “The Fall-Off Era”.

The ‘Disc 2 Track 2’ video ends with one line against an all-black screen: “The Fall-Off is inevitable”.

Birthday Blizzard ‘26 is available now on thefalloff.com, where Cole’s album The Fall-Off, set to release February 6, is also available for preorder.

Watch the video for ‘Disc 2 Track 2’ now: