The Fall-Off tour has proven to be an extremely emotional experience for J. Cole. He’s previously admitted to his most recent album as the last chapter to his story as an artist. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s retiring like we all initially thought. Instead, anything that he does in hip-hop is all in exhibition rather than the story of his life.

“It’s just lyrical exercise,” Cole said of some of his other albums. “It’s me practicing to get to ‘The Fall-Off’ which is the continuation of the J. Cole story. Jermaine’s life story in the form of this J. Cole character.”

Consequently, performing his story for his biggest fans has led him to have some deeply emotional moments. Most recently, Cole performed in Cleveland, Ohio, where he performed “Love Yourz”, an all-time favorite for his audience. The crowd had to do the bulk of the singing because the North Carolina legend choked up and came to tears hearing them.

Many of his fans in the comments for the video shared similar sentiments about the 2014 Forest Hills Drive classic. “J Cole might be going through the toughest times rn fr,” one fan wrote. “Bro has been so emotional throughout the fall off tour.”

J. Cole started tearing up during an emotional performance of ‘Love Yourz’ in Cleveland last night pic.twitter.com/Rv81kC5Rbz

— NFR Podcast (@nfr_podcast) August 16, 2026

J. Cole Gets Emotional as the Crowd Sings One of His All-Time Best Songs

The 41-year-old MC getting emotional over “Love Yourz” makes sense given how closely he holds 2014 Forest Hills Drive to his heart. In a 2021 interview with SLAM Magazine, he admitted that releasing the album finally allowed him to relax for the first time in his life. Instead of stressing about his career and what next moves he needed to make, he allowed himself to slow down.

“It was after I got off tour, and I could breathe. I was like, ‘Damn,’” J. Cole sighed in relief. “For the first time, I felt comfortable in a good way. I allowed myself to just chill, watch TV, play video games. Simple s*** that n****s do, but I don’t do. S*** that before I wouldn’t allow myself to do, because it was like, ‘Yo, I got way bigger s*** to do, way bigger fish to fry.’ I wouldn’t even give myself the pass of watching a whole [TV] series.”

Once he finally unwound, then he was left with a nagging question: Now what? At the time, he seriously contemplated retirement but decided he still had more left to say.

“And when I asked that question, it was strictly from an ability standpoint, a fulfillment standpoint. Like, did you max out your skill? Did you max out your abilities, or did you leave s*** on the table in terms of pushing yourself? And at that time, I remember feeling like, ‘No, no, you didn’t.’ The truth was very clear,” J. Cole said.

(Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

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