On Tuesday (May 4), J. Cole surprised fans with the forthcoming release date of his highly-awaited project, The Off-Season. The news garnered positive reactions from his fanbase who have been longing to hear some new music from the emcee. Fortunately, despite the album dropping on May 14, supporters will get a tease of what’s in store in just a few hours.

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.” 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.

After it was revealed that The Off-Season is coming out next week, Dreamville labelmate Cozz took to Twitter to let fans know that the songs on the album are some of Cole’s best work. “From what I’ve heard so far this Cole best shit to date,” he tweeted.

Bas — whose excitement led him to tease the project’s release date ahead of time — shared similar sentiments writing, “@realcoleworld 5/14/21 @dreamville. I ain’t never lied to you. Y’all can get out my dm’s now. This is up there with bros best works to date. Put my word on that too.”

Timbaland even chimed in on the conversation with a post that hinted he was producing one of the songs on the album. “I told y’all the king has returne !!!!!” he wrote on Instagram. “@realcoleworld @beatclub watch me work!!”

Look below for the aformentioned tweets and Instagram posts.