Listen up: J. Cole
Rap and hip-hop music has been going through a transition throughout the last few years.
The game has turned into being more about raw talent and being able to relate to songs. It is becoming less and less about how much of a gangster you are, where you’re from or having a cheesy dance to go along with your song (sorry Soulja Boy). J. Cole is the perfect example of this transition of the change rap and hip-hop music is going through.
He was born in Germany and moved to Fayetteville, N.C., when he was eight years old. He graduated from high school in 2003 and received an academic scholarship to St. John’s University and graduated magna cum laude.
That doesn’t read like your typical biography for most artists throughout the genre, but J. Cole is blowing up stereotypes with the recent release of his first full-length studio album “Cole World: The Sideline Story.” With tracks featuring established artists like Jay-Z, Drake, Missy Elliot and Trey Songz, “Cole World” opened up number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 on its release date, Sept. 27.
The album brings a variety of sounds to listeners including tracks with deeper meanings as well as tracks about finally making it in the game and just oozing straight swag.
Call me superficial, but my favorite track on the album is “Mr. Nice Watch” featuring Jay-Z. This is the swag track I was talking about. J. Cole kills it on this one, and of course almost everything Jay-Z touches is gold.
Another amazing track is one of the deeper ones on the album and is titled “Lost Ones.” The track tackles the issue of young couples dealing with the choice of getting an abortion. The first verse comes from the point of view of the man in the situation, then he switches over to the side of the woman and finally, in the final verse, he comes at it from a third-person point of view.
That being said, the album could have been better, and I can’t help but compare him to some of his contemporaries. His track with Drake titled “In the Morning” is about having sex with someone you’re spending the night with, a significant other maybe, and those kinds of tracks are just dumb to me. The hook itself has no substance at all: “Can I hit it in the Morning?” Repeat that three more times and you have your hook.
Besides that song, a couple of others are just all right, and to me he doesn’t lyrically stand up to some of the word play emitted by other artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and more established artists like Kanye West and Jay-Z.
I think J. Cole has a bright future in hip-hop nonetheless and should keep on the grind and he’ll be fine.
Posted by 
