J. Cole appears to be trolling his fanbase in a photo of him posing with a fan that has surfaced online.
In a photo circulating on social media this week, Cole was seen in a low-key look that featured a Vetements hoodie with a design that reads, "I'M RETIRED (This is as dressed up as I get)." The Vetements hoodie, which retails for $780, could just be a random choice of clothing on Cole's part, but it could also be a playful reference to his previous statements about walking away from hip-hop after dropping his long-awaited album, The Fall Off.
Back in 2020, Cole shared a post on Instagram where he revealed his plans for what he called, "The Fall Off Era." The list featured a number of planned projects, including The Off-Season, which released in 2021. "Still got some goals I gotta check off for' I scram," he captioned the post, which also teased a project titled It's a Boy, and the long-teased The Fall Off. While It's a Boy is nowhere to be seen, he did drop Might Delete Later just under a year ago.
In the lead-up to the release of The Off-Season, he suggested that he was comfortable moving on from his music career. "Oh, bro, I’m super comfortable with the potential of being done with this shit,” Cole explained. “But I’m never going to say, ‘Oh, this is my last album.’ … Because I never know how I’m going to feel two years, three years, four years down the line, 10 years down the line, but please believe, I’m doing all this work for a reason.”
Earlier this year, however, he shared a blog post and indicated that he was "locked in" on making new music, even if he's focused on finding a better balance between his family and creative life. "I been locked in on the music while also balancing family life. It's a juggling act that a blog post wouldn't do justice in explaining. But with that said, I'm back tending to this garden," he wrote.
