Songfacts®:

• The reoccurring theme of K.O.D. is the pain that makes people escape into addictive behavior. On "The Cut Off" Cole raps about an addiction of helping others.
  
  I had to cut some people off 'cause they was using me
  My heart is big, I want to give too much and usually
  I send the bread and don't hear back for like two months now
  You hit my phone, you need a loan, oh I'm a crutch now
  
  Cole laments that people constantly take advantage of him and use him. The fact that somebody he called a friend took his kindness for weakness, means that he's forced to remove them from his circle.
• The opposing character in the song who raps the first verse and chorus is Kill Edward. J Cole's alter ego is an addict that uses drugs and alcohol as his coping mechanism. He tries to manipulate the rapper, who wants to help him but Cole wises up to Kill Edward and ejects him from his life.
  
  Kill Edward was inspired by Cole's stepfather, Edward, who walked out on the family in 2003. Cole explained to Power 105's Angie Martinez that he tried to channel things he didn't like about himself into the Kill Edward character.
  
  "It represents, not kill him physically, I don't have no problem with the dude, I would speak to him today, but when I say Kill Edward, what I'm talking about is s--t that I feel like I inherited from him," he said. "There's aspects of myself that I wanted to overcome and beat, I feel like I got that from him… Cleansing myself of that traumatic experience."
• Cole samples two tracks during "The Cut Off": the drums from Bill Withers' 1972 song "Kissing My Love" and the riff from Takehiro Honda's 2007 track "Dark and Mellow."