On Tuesday (May 4), J. Cole surprised fans with the forthcoming release date of his highly-awaited project, The Off-Season. As a highly successful rapper who has now solidified his spot in the game, Cole is showing he moves on his own time, and the first taste of the project has officially arrived just because he felt like surprise-dropping it early, and fans can press play on “i n t e r l u d e” down below.

On Thursday (May 6), Cole took to Twitter to announce that at midnight (May 7), he’ll be releasing his first song of The Off-Season, a slight change from his original plans to release the album without a single. “Told myself I would drop the album all at once,” he tweeted.

“Sometimes you gotta say fuck it tho. New song tonight. 12 o’clock. ‘I n t e r l u d e’ from The Off-Season.

Cole’s fans have been waiting for The Off-Season since the “Middle Child” rapper mentioned it in 2018, hence the reason he tweeted the album was “years in the making.” Although the platinum rapper only made the official The Off-Season announcement last week, the existence of an upcoming project was confirmed for certain by the outro track of his last project KOD. The headline-garnering final track is titled “1985 – Intro to The Fall Off.”

Recently, following teases from Bas and Cole himself, the “No Role Modelz” MC made the official announcement. Now, anticipation for the album is through the roof, and Cole’s collaborators are adding on to the high hopes. The new project follows the Director’s Cut of the Revenge of the Dreamers III label collab album that was released in 2020.

Be sure to press play on J. Cole’s brand new single “i n t e r l u d e” down below.