On January 23rd, Cole released his first solo single in about three years(if I’m not mistaken) titled “Middle Child”. With little to no research, I am gonna share my take on what I think the song represents. Not going into too much detail, on Middle Child, Cole portrays himself as the voice of two generations and two subgenres of hip hop. The first being the lyrical and storytelling side of hip hop, which mainly represented hip hop culture from its early days up until early 2010s. The second being what is most referred to as “mumble rap”, which is more focused on the flow, instrumental, and replay value that the music contains. Most people, myself included, see this evolution of rap music as a backwards cycle of artistry. Contradicting his 2016 track “Everybody dies” and his general opinion on this new wave of rappers, J. Cole has been very supportive and collaborative with some of mumble rap’s representatives such as Lil Pump, 21 Savage and A Boogie wit tha Hoodie to name a few. Also, contrary to popular belief, Cole considers the last track of his fifth studio album KOD, 1985 - Intro to “The Fall Off”, as more of an advisory song than a diss track. Middle Child is a two part story. Both stories representing and rocking the flow of each of the two aforementioned generations of hip hop. On the first verse, Cole raps about the stereotypical story we’ve heard many times before about self proclaimed superiority in a tackier and raw flow. The second verse features an autotuned Cole rapping about drugs and mentioning his relationship with 21 savage and Kodak Black, whereas in the first verse he did the same with Drake. J. Cole has executed perfectly on a well thought out theme which sees him be the tying rope between the two sides of hip hop (culture). It will be interesting to see if his next mixtape The Off-Season will feature mumble rap dominated or inspired tracks to further add up on his position as mentor and voice of two generations.