J. Cole Surprises Fans With New Album, Announces Release Date

Billboard

In a pleasant surprise for fans, Award-winning hip-hop artist J. Cole announced his new album and its prompt release date. In just three days time, J. Cole’s fifth studio album, KOD, will be delivered to the public.

On Monday, the artist tweeted an ambiguous open invitation: “NYC. Come through. Couple hours from now. First come first serve.” Held at New York’s Gramercy Theatre, there were no phones, cameras, or bags allowed, and no press list or guess list.

According to Brian Miller from Rap Radar, the event was an exclusive listening session of the entire album, consisting of “about 12 songs,” with one song titled “1985.” After the event, J. Cole revealed the forthcoming release date of the KOD album via Twitter. Naturally, fans were curious about the meaning behind KOD, speculating that the acronym could stand for “King of Dreamville,” “Kiss of Death,” or even “Kendrick on Dreamville.” However, Miller stated in a separate tweet that “KOD” has three different subtitles: “kidz on drugs,” “king overdose,” and “kill our demonz.” Furthermore, the album was recorded in only two weeks time.

This isn’t the first time that the North Carolina-born rapper has surprised fans with an album. Back in 2014, he also took to Twitter to declare the release of 2014 Forest Hills Drive, while announcing his most recent album, 4 Your Eyez Only, with an iTunes pre-order page.

KOD will be J. Cole’s fifth studio album, and will be released on April 20.