On January 20, 2019, J. Cole cleared his Instagram page, the next day Cole cryptically posted a series of posts with lines from the song. They read: I'm Counting My Bullets, I'm Loading My Clips, I'm Writing Down Names, and I'm Making A List, Cole later deleted the tweets. Later that same day, Cole announced on social media that he was releasing "Middle Child" on January 23, 2019, at 9:00 PM EST, and uploaded the cover which featured the song's title capitalized over a grey background. On January 25, 2019, in an interview with Complex, producer T-Minus revealed that they made the song about two months before the highly promoted Dreamville recording sessions, which were held the same month "Middle Child" was released. He also spoke about the process he and Cole took making the song:
Production
"Middle Child" was produced by both J. Cole and Canadian hip-hip producer T-Minus. The song includes an exclusive multi-track sample of the horns section from "Wake Up to Me" by '70s Philadelphia trio First Choice, which was found and cleared through music licensing site Tracklib. This allowed them to isolate horns before adding in the drums. In an episode of Genius' Deconstructed, T-Minus explained he "put some reverb on to give it that effect of it being a little bit more airy, a little bit bigger". Next was the addition of drums to the song, which T-Minus said was reminiscent of KOD "'cause a lot of it's very like stuttery kind of hats, very short but rhythmic". The drums added a variety of sounds, but J. Cole wanted to add an 808 pattern to the song, with the beat going from high to low. T-Minus noted the 808 for being "really hard" and also incorporated hi-hats to add "more energy to the song when it drops". The last production detail was including T-Minus' signature "trippy vibe", which he previously utilized on song like Kendrick Lamar's "Swimming Pools " and Lil Wayne's "She Will"—"at the end of the record, we kind of added this effect to make everything kind of sound dark and kind of trippy".
Commercial performance
With only one day of tracking, the song debuted at number 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The following week, the song peaked at number 4, making it J. Cole's highest-charting song. The song also peaked at number 2 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Music video
An accompanying music video for the track was uploaded onto Cole's official YouTube channel on February 25, 2019. Cole announced the video via Twitter on February 22, 2019. The video was shot in Georgia, and was directed by fellow North Carolina rapper Mez, and features cameos from Dreamville artists Lute, Omen and Cozz. The video serves as Mez' first directed video. In an interview with Complex, Mez spoke about the creation of the video, he said: Reviewing the music video, Laura Dzubay of The Michigan Daily said, "The visuals used in the "MIDDLE CHILD" video are very evocative: Between the lit-up marching band, the covered dead bodies, the stuffed rappers' heads on the mantle and the woman at the end picking a Saran-wrapped head out of a sale freezer at the grocery store, it's almost hard to land on which theme might be the most significant. What does seem clear is that J. Cole is asserting his readiness to dominate the music scene no matter which direction it takes next." Writing for The Fader, Jordan Darville described the video as "a fun, symbolic, and provocative set of visuals."
