J. Cole just released the second installment of his Might Delete This Later video series, and it’s full of easter eggs, callbacks to previous eras, and snippets of new music.
The first episode of Might Delete This Later, which he uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 21, included footage of Cole in the studio with Tay Keith, clips of him traveling with Drake across the country, and even a new snippet of unreleased music. Now Vol. 2 continues that format, featuring more footage of Cole working on music during the tour, some throwbacks to his Born Sinner era, and a lot of snippets of new music that will hopefully be featured on his forthcoming album The Fall Off.
In the video, Cole reveals that he’s made “6 iterations” of the album at this point because of how long he’s been working on it, and if these episodes are any indicator of the quality of the album, fans are going to be eating well this year.
There’s a lot to unpack throughout the 11-minute clip, so here are 6 Easter eggs you might have missed in J. Cole’s Might Delete Later Vol. 2.
J. Cole just released the second installment of his Might Delete This Later video series, and it’s full of easter eggs, callbacks to previous eras, and snippets of new music.
The first episode of Might Delete This Later, which he uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 21, included footage of Cole in the studio with Tay Keith, clips of him traveling with Drake across the country, and even a new snippet of unreleased music. Now Vol. 2 continues that format, featuring more footage of Cole working on music during the tour, some throwbacks to his Born Sinner era, and a lot of snippets of new music that will hopefully be featured on his forthcoming album The Fall Off.
In the video, Cole reveals that he’s made “6 iterations” of the album at this point because of how long he’s been working on it, and if these episodes are any indicator of the quality of the album, fans are going to be eating well this year.
There’s a lot to unpack throughout the 11-minute clip, so here are 6 Easter eggs you might have missed in J. Cole’s Might Delete Later Vol. 2.
Lil Cole makes a return
This is a deep cut reference for all the OG Dreamville fans. Back in 2008, Cole pitched up his voice using Auto-Tune and created Lil Cole, a hilarious alter ego that would pop up on skits at the end of Born Sinner’s “Forbidden Fruit” and again on KOD’s “Brackets.” Lil Cole makes a physical appearance at the 2:10 mark of Might Delete Later Vol. 2, taking his turn as videographer as he captures footage of Cole in the studio and on tour, before introducing Dreamville’s new Indie 5000 basketball sneaker.
He’s paying homage to classic S.M.A.C.K DVDs
Cole is paying homage to classic S.M.A.C.K DVDs with the creative direction on these Might Delete Later videos. S.M.A.C.K (an acronym for Streets, Music, Arts, Culture, and Knowledge) DVDs were videos that gave fans a raw look into the lives of their favorite rappers, featuring everything from freestyles to beefs to unfiltered interviews. The shaky, handheld VCR aesthetics fit the content that Cole has been including in these videos, like throwback clips of him in what looks like his Sideline Story era back in the early 2010s, paired with camcorder shots of his adventures on his current joint tour with Drake. S.M.A.C.K DVDs might be a thing of the past now that we’re in the age of the internet, but they clearly influenced Cole here.
He’s making a lot of his own beats again
At the end of Might Delete Later Vol. 1, Cole talks about wanting to tap back into his beat-making bag, and the episode ends with an old clip of him making the beat for Born Sinner’s “She Knows.” Vol. 2 picks up right where the last vlog left off, with Cole making a new beat for the album and showing how his production skills have improved. He’s been making his own beats since the beginning of his career, handling the heavy lifting for several of his albums, including Born Sinner, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, and more, but he wasn’t all over the production credits on The Off-Season in the same way he’s been in the past. The footage in Might Delete Later Vol. 2 makes it clear that although he’s still tapping outside producers like Boi1da, Conductor Williams, and Metro Boomin (all of whom make cameo appearances or were named-dropped on either episode), he’s also taking on a lot of the beat-making himself. This could be a hint that we’ll be hearing a lot more Cole-produced beats on The Fall Off.
There are half a dozen new music snippets
There’s a lot of promising new music being played in the Vol. 2, which will hopefully be featured on The Fall Off. At the 57-second mark of the YouTube video, a 10-second snippet of a new song that sounds like it could’ve been on The Off Season can be heard before the scene shifts to him joking around with his Dreamville clique. The second clip is a smooth song featuring Bas that’s played during a mini-commercial for Cole’s new Indie 5000 sneaker. The longest clip of new music, which features Cole flexing about his ridiculous feature run over the last year, starts at 4:28, alongside shots of Cole biking through an empty city. There’s a second-long clip that plays at 8:46 where you only hear the bar “Gone but not forgotten,” before the episode closes with an insane snippet of Cole rapping over Dipset’s “I’m Ready” beat featuring a new intro from Cam’ron. As a bonus, you can also hear a verse if you dial the number at the end of the video (910-335-4033), but it hasn’t been confirmed who is rapping it.
