J. Cole has finally explained why his long-rumored It’s a Boy project didn’t arrive before The Fall-Off, denying speculation that the project may have been scrapped altogether.
It’s a Boy was announced in late 2020, as part of a now-deleted Instagram post laying out the timeline of what he referred to as “The Fall-Off Era.” The order was “features,” then Revenge of the Dreamers 3, then The Off-Season, then It’s a Boy, and finally The Fall-Off.
The first few of those were on schedule, with Cole releasing a ton of features throughout 2019 and ROTD 3 dropping that July. The Off-Season then came out in May, 2021. So fans were primed to expect It’s a Boy before The Fall-Off, which of course didn’t happen.
Cole’s new clarification about the status of It’s a Boy came during a recent AMA-style exchange on inevitable.live, where the rapper directly responded to a fan asking whether It’s a Boy had been shelved. According to the rapper, the project is very much alive, just delayed.
“No it’s not scrapped. it will release,” Cole wrote in a reply. He revealed that It’s a Boy was actually close to dropping before The Fall-Off, but timing and volume became an issue. “We almost put it out before the album. but with the birthday blizzard tape and 24 song album we was like it’s a lot of music to process.”
The explanation arrives just days after Cole released The Fall-Off to strong praise from his Dreamers fan base. The project, which may mark the final chapter of his studio album run, dropped on February 6, and quickly became a major moment for longtime supporters.
True to form, Cole celebrated the release in a deeply personal way. He surprised fans by showing up at a listening event in his hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, where attendees didn’t know he’d be in the building until he appeared.
The following day, Cole took his connection with fans even further by announcing that he would be selling physical copies of The Fall-Off directly out of his car.