(Interscope)
Bowing out after six consecutive US No 1 albums, Cole references rap greats and even conjures a convo between Biggie and 2Pac – but the lens rarely strays from himself

J Cole released his debut mixtape in 2007, and now, nearly two decades later and after six back-to-back US No 1 albums, the North Carolina MC is still wrestling with the weight of so much hope heaped upon him. He is framing The Fall Off as a graceful bowing out – “to do on my last what I was unable to do on my first”, he has said – and it’s almost as if he is a student coming to the end of a long period of study, with this double album as his graduate thesis.

Across 24 tracks and 101 minutes, The Fall Off is full of technical proficiency, raw lyrical skill, citation, interpolation and sampling, and it attempts nothing less than to embody a half-century of hip-hop. Through direct and indirect references, lessons unfold throughout. The Fall-Off Is Inevitable is inspired by Nas’s 2001 Stillmatic track Rewind. I Love Her Again is an obvious nod to Common’s I Used to Love HER. Bunce Road Blues borrows lyrics from Usher’s Nice & Slow but connects to R&B’s present with guest vocals from Nigerian singer Tems. The Let Out is reminiscent of SpottieOttieDopaliscious from OutKast’s Aquemini, and so forth: all ample material for audiences to think through hip-hop’s past and future.