J. Cole Fans Think He Took Shots At Joey Bada$$ In New Freestyle

Yesterday, J. Cole surprise-released a set of 4 freestyles titled Birthday Blizzard ’26. As reactions to the drop proceed to pour in, so do theories that the hitmaker took pictures at a number of of his friends. On “99 Build Freestyle,” for instance, he calls out rappers who use beef to promote data.

“Rays from the flows, radiate the globe, meltin’ snow on this frozen tundra / Known because the rap recreation, that is been overcome / With loads of marketin’ plans / Based on randomly dissin’ and hatin’ on the subsequent man,” he raps. “Drama enhances the eye delivered to the followers / On standard channels, so that you wanna hop on the band / Wagon of battle rappin’, and throwin’ pictures in a jam / I had my likelihood, however I dropped it, which implies my solely choice’s / To do the other then (Lead with the ability, n***a).”

For those that do not recall, Joey Bada$$ is rumored to have dissed Cole on “Sorry Not Sorry,” a track he dropped final January. He appeared to reference his decision to back out of his beef with Kendrick Lamar, specifically. “I’m bigging up my metropolis, that is one thing I needed to do,” he spat. “Might delete later, I do know rattling positive that Joey will not, f*ck it, I would like all of the smoke.”

The launch of Birthday Blizzard ’26 comes only a few days earlier than J. Cole is about to drop his long-awaited seventh studio album, The Fall-Off. The album is slated for launch on February 6, 2026. According to him, it has been a very long time within the making, and was “hand crafted with one intention: a private problem to myself to create my finest work.”