Don’t write the farewell posts just yet. J. Cole has made it clear he isn’t calling his next chapter a retirement.

Speaking to GQ’s Frazier Tharpe alongside his longtime mentor, music executive Mark Pitts, Cole was asked straight up about retiring. His answer: “No, I’m not using that word at all.”

He said he went into The Fall-Off, which finally arrived in February 2026, with a possible ending in mind, but his outlook had already shifted by the time he finished it. The Fall-Off World Tour is underway now, and no date has been announced for another album.

Looking back at ‘7 Minute Drill’

Cole also revisited his 2024 moment with Kendrick Lamar. He said he already had Kendrick material planned for his own album when the feud broke, which left him in an awkward spot. “I got to respond without responding, but still try to save face,” he said, describing himself as “retired, uninspired” during that period. He added that he could have leaned on Pitts more and been more open about what he was going through.

Quick recap: Kendrick’s verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s ‘Like That’ (22 March 2024) rejected the idea of a shared throne and referenced Drake’s ‘First Person Shooter’. Cole answered with ‘7 Minute Drill’, the closer on his surprise project Might Delete Later, on 5 April 2024. Two days later, at his headline set at Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, he apologised on stage, and by 12 April the song was gone from streaming services.

Retired? Not in Cole’s vocabulary. Read the full story via the link below.

Source: DancehallMag (interview by GQ)