Back on January 23rd, 2019 we were treated to J. Cole‘s first single of the year “Middle Child.” He embraces his current place in Hip-Hop, being an older brother to the lils of the rap game and a younger brother to the OG’s. After the year he had in 2018 and the excitement generated from the 10-day Revenge of The Dreamers 3 recording sessions, this release was pretty big and and his subject matter conveyed he was approaching rap very differently.

Top Dawg Ent.’s new talent REASON was one of the invitees to Atlanta for the Dreamville rap camp, after an exciting back half of 2018 releasing his album There You Have It and performing at Rolling Loud. He’s young, but many figures in the rap game are already labeling him as a leader of the new wave. I mean, he did get signed by TDE.

Thus, it was especially exciting to see his take on the “Middle Child” beat. The mid-tempo T-Minus-produced cut lends itself to beating both floated over and attacked, which both Cole and Reason did. The LA rapper speculates on how he may not make the XXL Freshman cover and it’s kinda trippin’ him out, shoots hit shot at Summer Walker, expresses his wishes for Cole to let him have the two tracks he worked on with Wale, and confirmed he’s got new music coming.

Some lines I especially enjoyed were “these niggas all cap like they holding down shift,” “rap like a heavy fat chick on a plank, bitch nigga I snap,” “life a cocky and conceited bitch, I ain’t fucked yet but got some head out her.” This guy is really clever and I’m so waiting very impatiently for his next set of music. In 1995 it was the South had somethign to say. I reckon 2019 is the year we see a new batch of youngsters forcefully claim part of the throne.

Check out REASON’s “Middle Child” freestyle below. Oh, and he also dropped a dope verse on JAG‘s album that dropped today. REASON day? It’ll be complete when Summer responds.