J. Cole Reveals ‘The Fall-Off’ Disc 2 Cover Art, Which Came Following Kendrick Lamar Apology: ‘I Became Incredibly Re-Inspired’

With fans counting down the days until The Fall-Off‘s arrival, J. Cole revealed a second cover art for disc 2 of what we now know is a double-album on Thursday (Jan. 29).

Cole took to Instagram to post the cover, which features a recent photo of the Dreamville rapper looking down in a denim zip-up hoodie jacket. The Fall-Off arrives Feb. 6 and is currently available for pre-order on Cole’s website, with the two-disc CD going for $26.26.

The North Carolina native appeared to reference bowing out of a potential feud with Kendrick Lamar and the backlash from it re-energizing him creatively, which led to a second disc for The Fall-Off and the aforementioned album cover.

“2 years ago, after the events that still feed the algorithm to this day, I became incredibly re-inspired, and the album slowly blossomed into a double disc as the concept expanded. I felt there should be an additional cover that represented that,” Cole wrote. “Something just as strong as the first, with my face on it, so when I look back in 20 years, I can see an image of who I was at the time I released the project I worked on for so long.”

For those unaware, J. Cole initially dissed Kendrick on “7 Minute Drill” but ended up scrubbing the Might Delete Later mixtape cut from streaming services and later apologized to Lamar onstage at his Dreamville Festival in 2024.

J. Cole also provided some context on the original cover for The Fall-Off, which happens to be his first make-shift studio setup, where he’d dig through samples and wrote his very first song in the chair seen in the disposable photo he took at 15 years old.

“My first beats were made in that spot surrounded by my mother’s CD collection that I would comb through looking for samples,” he wrote. “The first song I ever made came to life in that very chair you see in the picture. I sat for hours, in a zone I had never experienced before, until I was done writing a track that I titled ‘The Storm.'”

Cole surprised fans with a four-pack of freestyles hosted by DJ Clue, which was packaged into the Birthday Blizzard ’26 EP as Cole celebrated his 41st birthday on Wednesday.

He set the stage for The Fall-Off with his “Disc 2 Track 2” single, which saw him rap his life’s story in reverse. Cole’s last album, The Off-Season, arrived in May 2021 and went No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 282,000 total album-equivalent units earned.

Thid article was first published by Billboard U.S.