Hey, everyone. Fastthony Cartano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new J. Cole project, Birthday Blizzard '26.

Jermaine Cole, rapper, producer, songwriter, and one of the most important hip hop artists of the 2010s, who is currently sitting at a very important crossroads in his career. He's on the cusp of dropping what is said to be his final album, the two disk project known as The Fall-Off. He has hyped this thing up to be his best album ever, as he is on a mission to outdo himself and solidify his legacy before he completely bows out of the hip hop game. This is a decision that has been allegedly in the making for years.

Personally, Cole had me pretty excited for the prospect of this album, given the quality of the project he used to pre-game this whole thing, The Off-Season, several years ago at this point.

However, Cole kind of hit a speed bump along the way to releasing The Fall-Off. In the way that he bowed out of the big three beef between Kendrick and Drake in 2024, leaving him looking like he just was not ready and up to the challenge of proving himself as the best rapper of his generation.

Still, even if Cole isn't battle ready, there's a lot of room for him to at least impress with a good quality final album. And look, in the grander scheme of things, it may not actually matter whether or not J. Cole can go track for track with another artist in a series of disses. Because some of my favorite rappers and rap acts, some of the most legendary and influential artists, don't have a single diss track to their name, formally. So from here, it's really a matter of whether or not Cole regains his footing for this new record, and maybe this little Blizzard freestyle project can be a part of that.

Now, this thing is not a larger mixtape or project. It's really just a four-track run, pretty short. The whole thing is hosted by the legendary DJ Clue, as he's really trying to give this whole thing a grimy underground 2000s, late '90s type rap mixtape/energy, with an interesting slate of beat choices. We have the instrumental that is known for being tied to Diddy's, "Victory", featuring, of course, the Notorious B. I. G. and Busta Rhymes. D-dot's beat for Black Rob's "Can I Live". Cole continues to keep up the New York vibe with the instrumental to Biggie's "Who Shot Ya?". To tie things up, he also grabs the instrumental to the Lox's "Money, Power & Respect", which this handful of instrumental says quite a bit about the attitude he's going into this series of freestyles with, which he made available on their own website for a pay-what-you-want model, minimum being a dollar.

And while, again, the beats are not new, the lyrical performances and the verses are. And honestly, these are some of the best lyrical showings Cole has had in a minute. Certainly a lot better than his Might Delete Later mixtape, which was just so shamefully bad, I struggled to delete that project from memory in my mind. Because in this handful of tracks, Cole shows up legitimately hungry, determined to, and in a way, he sets the bar pretty high for what we're hopefully going to hear on The Fall-Off. I mean, it's a bold move, not just to step to these pretty tried and true instrumentals. But if Cole somehow comes at this new album, this final album, with a measurably lower level of energy and focus and lyrical ability, save for maybe a handful of spots where he's being a bit headier and more introspective and low-key, it's just going to dull the enthusiasm for the album.

Now, this whole thing kicks off with the "Bronx Zoo Freestyle", where vocally, Cole sounds like he is just fighting for his life while describing how much of the rap game has devolved into hating and drama, of course, comparing and describing himself as the antithesis to all these prevailing trends, and even likening himself to Jesus saying, "Boom, walked out that tomb like Matthew said that Jesus did." There's some funny lines and wordplay to be had, too, like "K's pop, like Asian rappers," persistent animal themes and nods given the Bronx Zoo title. Also, an acknowledgement toward the very end, how the apology toward Kendrick and bowing out of the beef and all that, impacted how people perceived him as an artist. But if being seen as the underdog is what makes Cole come at this beat and any other this aggressively, I'm all for it.

After this, we have "Golden Goose", which vocally does feature a more chill approach, but a busier rhyme scheme, though, with even more criticisms about the ways in which hip hop has been hollowed out commercially over the last 10 years. Artists selling out their soul to Lucian Grainge, who is mentioned by name. The separation that we see these days between artists who seemingly have a really huge internet buzz but don't really seem to pull in that much of a following at a show, a sighting, juicing of numbers and probably bots.

But then also on this track, we also get claims of how much beef Cole has been involved in over the course of his life and career. It's in moments like this where, I don't know, I just want to pump the brakes a little bit and, again, remind fans that Cole has consciously told us publicly that he is a man of peace, wants to maintain his peace. I don't know. I think the beef claims are maybe just a little bit shoddy.

However, I will say the "Winter Storm Freestyle" further confirms this new energy, how this tape represents a reset moment for Cole because, again, maybe being on his back foot was enough to make him just feel reignited a little bit in terms of his drive and passion, just push him forward with bars like, "Memes say I'm humble, but this humility is from witnessen' violence and off utilities / No man that's rhyming can catch my fluidity / I'm Mike Jordan, Ant Edwards / You kidding me / Cole gets older but grows new abilities / You didn't know I'm Zeno with Goku agility." With the cool Dragon Ball Z reference there.

I mean, again, not only is this track and energetic and edge-of-your-seat performance, but it shows also how much where Cole came from earlier in his career, how much of that is still fresh in his mind and how he hasn't really lost all that much touch with who he was when he started out. Which is very much the case for some artists who much of the time would rather run away from their past or their most embarrassing moments. Again, even with one of Cole's being very recent, he is unafraid to bring it up and hopefully use it as a means of doing better.

The whole thing closes up with this "99 Build Freestyle". Content-wise on this freestyle, Cole is saying a lot of similar stuff, maybe except for this one admittance that since he folded in the midst of the battle and backed away from that in order to prove himself as the best rapper, or one of the best of his generation, he has to do so through skill now, presumably by just making a really great album. I don't know.

While I agree with the idea that not all great hip hop music is proven through rap battles, there are some fans who are legitimately going to read lines like that and framing like that as cope. I'm sorry, man, you did have this bonafide moment, this bonafide opportunity to prove you were undeniably the best, but you walked a different path, which okay, is fine. But even if The Fall-Off is actually a good record, the various boasts Cole is probably going to pepper throughout the album like he did on this tape, is just going to ring hollow for a lot of listeners. Even if that perception doesn't totally paint my view of this eventual project and this little mixtape here, it's a valid point.

That's this project in a nutshell. It's very solid and exciting running run of freestyles that, honestly, I found myself playing over and over again, even though it was just a handful of cuts. It's overall very quality, very solid, and just makes me wish there was more where it came from. At this level of energy and focus and lyrical ability, I wouldn't have minded hearing six more random instrumental pics from Cole with free styles on top of them.

But it just seems like this little EP-sized tape is what we're going to get for now until The Fall-Off comes out, which the release date for that is pretty much around the corner. Pretty much feeling a decent to strong seven on this thing.

Anthony Fantano, J. Cole, forever.