J. Cole: Might Delete Later Album Review

Obviously, J. Cole is not the type of rapper he would like to be. Since the start of his career, at the height of the blogging era, the North Carolina native has staked his reputation on being a full-fledged rapper, bar for bar, the paragon of the genre, the master of experience. . Although he is a talented singer with a flexible voice, he has always been respectful (sometimes to a fault) of the legends of the 1990s and early 2000s, writing about his life in long mythic arcs and peppering his albums with singles radio anchored in the neuroses and details of the characters sown on his first mixtapes. He delivers all of this in a way designed to free up space for determined bursts of setup and punchline showmanship – a magnetic mode if you can hack it. Cole often can’t.

Might delete later, released as a “mixtape” without warning last week, exists solely to highlight this competitive streak in Cole’s music. How else could we receive a record that, instead of a single, was flimsily aimed at Kendrick Lamar, who had very lightly criticized Cole on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” a few weeks prior? But last weekend, less than 48 hours after its release, Cole took the stage at his own Dreamville festival in Raleigh and apologized to Kendrick for “7 Minute Drill” and his pile of Jay-Z bars reused and cringe metaphors (“Fly Pebbles to your dome, we the Stone Temple Pilots”; “He’s still doing shows but he fell like the Simpsons”), calling it “the lamest shit I’ve ever done in my fucking life”. Maybe! What is certain is that Might delete later honors its dated title as a record which, for reasons linked or not to excuses, seems to be denying itself in real time.

The two potential singles, “Fever” and the Bas-featuring “Stealth Mode,” sound like a half-record abandoned before being rounded into its ideal shape. (The former is stealthy and remains mostly effective, especially after recovering from an awkward opening phrase that recalls for a second his infamous enlightening verse on Jeremih’s “Get High.”) Elsewhere, attempts at verbal pyrotechnics become indistinct: middle In “Huntin’ Wabbitz,” his flow has settled into a sleepy swing, and his boasts about being “too closeted” don’t quite read the way they should.

And even, Might delete later contains many compelling elements: rhythmic, textural and even personal. Opener “Pricey” is weighed down by an unnecessarily frilly interlude and equally tense references to John Gotti and Rick and Morty. But his drums sound like they’re dragging through quicksand, and Cole rushes into them with agility. A track later, on “Crocodile Tearz,” he raps under his breath in a way that makes him sound calmer and more menacing than ever before; “HYB” is an extremely rare thing, a subtle integration of Drill’s wobble into a less industrial sonic palette. On “Stickz N Stonez,” The Alchemist delivers the kind of irresistible leap that forces rappers to straighten up and find new pockets.