J. Cole has always been a student of the craft. Pushing his way to rap’s top tier though the strength of his technical abilities, the rapper’s pen game stands with the best of them – for all the events of the past 12 months, his role in the so-called Big Three was cemented long ago.

Retiring early from the Kendrick vs Drake beef was perhaps the right move, but it certainly stunted perceptions. Returning to fan-favourite release ‘Friday Night Lights’ was the right step, a move that tapped into exactly why people fell for his art in the first place.

‘cLOUDs’ picks up on this. It’s not on streaming, but it is on certain sharing sites – it’s basically datPiff all over again, a means of by-passing systems, and sharing works-in-progress.

As a spotlight for his rap abilities, ‘cLOUDs’ could scarcely be stronger – a fantastic piece of work, the novelistic stretch moves from taking down the billionaire elite to critiquing the role of AI in music in just a few minutes.

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Packed with stellar, punchy pieces of self-aggrandisement – “I’m Spike Lee of the audio, back in my barrio” – it’s a track that moves from sly, tongue-in-cheek moments, to going up against the most powerful forces in the world.

Warning of “billionaires who don’t care the world’s gon’ break / Long as they make money off it” he warns: “pain brings profit…”

A track shot through with J. Cole’s moral stance, he conjures rhymes that pivot between Chuck D and William Blake: “There’s a bridge you can walk to hear God talk / But there are real slim odds a rich man crosses / ‘Cause greed is a poisonous seed, indeed / As it spreads like weeds through the mind’s apple trees…”

Seemingly a sketch, an unfinished treatise, ‘cLOUDs’ is a reminder not only of Cole’s worth, but of an entire era.

“just wanted to share. made this a few days ago, then i added a second verse and was like “man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.” I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one… “cLOUDs”. – produced by DZL, Omen, and small contributions from me.” — J. Cole