Among a stacked new music release day, Gang Starr shared "Family and Loyalty" featuring J. Cole.
When linking out to the track on Twitter, Cole said the collab marked an "honor" for him. Additionally, he warned that the MC Guru and DJ Premier cut "is the last feature you'll hear from me."
While some have taken that portion of Cole's comments to mean that he's ditching the practice of guest features entirely, that assumption notably misses the specific mention of "this run" merely a few words later.
As Cole explained in this summer's Dreamville documentary Revenge, the then-longstanding assumption among listeners that he was fully averse to collaborating wasn't accurate and ultimately inspired a personal realization about his legacy.
"When I meet other artists in the game, I really do fuck with them and have great conversations with them," Cole said in the doc. "But the outside world don't know that, because I'm so secluded in a sense. And I realized that."
Moving forward, Cole said at the time, he wanted to actively battle against a scenario in which he looks back on his work in 20 years and realized "I never worked with nobody, I never had no fun."
And Cole's most recent era made good on that vision. His 2018/2019 run has included generally stellar collabs with 21 Savage, Miguel, Ty Dolla Sign, Young Thug and Travis Scott, J.I.D, and more.
Most recently, he appeared on Rapsody's Eve cut "Sojourner."
Is Cole signaling to fans that he's now shifting his focus to working on a new solo album? Stay tuned.
