Whether Snow on Tha Bluff, a spare cut underpinned by opulent guitars and string samples, will eventually feature on his long-teased album ‘The Fall Off’ is a matter for further speculation.
The track obliquely references the recent Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, with Cole rapping from the perspective of someone scrolling through their social media feed.
Speculation suggests that its thematic drive is a nod to recent activism and criticism of big name artists by the Chicago rapper Noname. “My IQ is average, there's a young lady out there, she way smarter than me,” Cole intones. “I scrolled through her timeline in these wild times, and I started to read. She mad at these crackers, she mad at these capitalists, mad at these murder police.”
He pivots: “But shit, it's something about the queen tone that's botherin' me. She strike me as somebody blessed enough to grow up in a conscious environment. With parents that know 'bout the struggle for liberation and in turn they provide her with a perspective and awareness of the system and unfairness that afflicts 'em.”
UPDATE: J. Cole has posted a lenghty thread to Twitter after debate broke out over his apparent Noname diss. Check it out below. "I haven’t done a lot of reading and I don’t feel well equipped as a leader in these times," he writes. "But I do a lot of thinking. And I appreciate her and others like her because they challenge my beliefs and I feel that in these times that’s important."
Right or wrong I can’t say, but I can say it was honest.
Some assume to know who the song is about. That’s fine with me, it’s not my job to tell anybody what to think or feel about the work. I accept all conversation and criticisms. But
Follow @noname . I love and honor her as a leader in these times. She has done and is doing the reading and the listening and the learning on the path that she truly believes is the correct one for our people. Meanwhile a nigga like me just be rapping.
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