{"id":1685311,"date":"2026-01-28T15:03:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1685311"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:03:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:03:59","slug":"j-cole-surprise-releases-new-ep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1685311","title":{"rendered":"J. Cole Surprise Releases New EP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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News<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

J. Cole Surprise Releases New EP<\/h1>\n
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Marking Cole\u2019s 41st birthday, the DJ Clue\u2013hosted Birthday Blizzard \u201926<\/em> addresses his apology for feuding with Kendrick Lamar<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Jazz Monroe<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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J. Cole (Prince Williams\/WireImage)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As he prepares to release new album The Fall-Off<\/em> next week, J. Cole has surprise released a new EP to celebrate his 41st birthday. Hosted by DJ Clue\u2014the rap mixtape pioneer and Power 105.1 radio DJ\u2014Birthday Blizzard \u201926<\/em> is for sale on a pay-what-you-want basis, as long as you want to pay at least $1. Find that here before the album arrives on February 6.<\/p>\n

Among the five tracks are a freestyle over Stevie J\u2019s instrumental to Diddy\u2019s \u201cVictory\u201d (complete with the Notorious B.I.G.\u2019s original ad libs) and, on \u201cBronx Zoo Freestyle,\u201d what appears to be a further winding down of Cole\u2019s feud with Kendrick Lamar. After inadvertently sparking the Kendrick-Drake beef back in 2023\u2014when he stood himself alongside them in mainstream rap\u2019s \u201cthe big three\u201d\u2014Cole famously went after Lamar on \u201c7 Minute Drill\u201d and publicly chastised himself three days later, telling a Dreamville Festival crowd the \u201cgoofy\u201d song was \u201cthe lamest shit I ever did in my fucking life.\u201d Cole later tried to mediate between the two rappers on \u201cPort Antonio,\u201d and \u201cBronx Zoo Freestyle\u201d picks up where that left off. \u201cI used to be top seed\/The apology dropped me way out of the top 3\/No problem, I\u2019m probably best when they doubt me,\u201d he raps.<\/p>\n

\"Kendrick<\/span><\/p>\n
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Drake and Kendrick\u2019s Beef Is the Most Miserable Spectacle in Rap History<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/pitchfork.com\/news\/j-cole-surprise-releases-new-ep\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News J. Cole Surprise Releases New EP Marking Cole\u2019s 41st birthday, the DJ Clue\u2013hosted Birthday Blizzard \u201926 addresses his apology for feuding with Kendrick Lamar By Jazz Monroe January 28, 2026 J. Cole (Prince Williams\/WireImage) As he prepares to release new album The Fall-Off next week, J. Cole has surprise released a new EP to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1685312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,54],"class_list":["post-1685311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1685311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1685312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1685311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1685311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1685311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}