J. Cole is continuing the rollout for The Off-Season with the release of a film about the recording process behind the album. The emcee took to Twitter on Monday (May 10) to drop the link to Applying Pressure: The Off-Season Documentary.
“It’s live,” he wrote. “See you on Friday.”
The documentary sees Cole explaining the meaning behind The Off-Season as well as the thought process that pushed him to complete the project.
“My life is just mad routine at this point, and I like it so to go shoot a video, shoot a doc…I swear to God, that’s the level of comfort/laziness that I’ve reached in my life,” he says in the roughly 12-minute video.
“Imagine that when applied to music in a craft and a sport that literally you can’t get comfortable with. I had to make a real decision. Are you okay with getting comfortable, chilling, mailing it in, waiting around on inspiration. If this is as high as you ever got…from a skill level, can you leave no stone unturned creatively? And when I thought about that, I was like, ‘Nah, I’m not cool with that.’”
The Off-Season has been in the works for some time. Fans of Cole first learned about the project back in 2018. Nearly three years later, the rapper finally revealed that the album, which is “years in the making,” will be released on May 14. He hasn’t let up since.
Days after Cole’s announcement made his name and the title of his album trend on Twitter, he decided he’d add on to his supporters’ anticipation with a little tease of what’s to come. “Told myself I would drop the album all at once,” he penned in a tweet. “Sometimes you gotta say fuck it tho.” “I n t e r l u d e,” the first song from The Off-Season, was released hours later on Friday (May 7).
Applying Pressure: The Off-Season Documentary, a precursor to Cole’s forthcoming album, is out now. Check out the rapper’s tweet below.