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J. Cole’s New Album, and Why The Hype is Worth It

J. Cole seems to have gotten a lot of flack on social media as of late. After his third album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, went double platinum without containing any features from other artists, his die-hard fans became much more vocal about their praise for him, even turning “J. Cole went platinum with no features” into a meme. Suddenly, J. Cole became overhyped.

 

 

Despite all this, J. Cole’s fanbase was more than pleased with the release of his fourth album, 4 Your Eyez Only. The 10-track album, also containing no features, dropped on Friday, December 9th and has received fairly positive reviews from critics. Unlike Cole’s previous album, Eyez lacks some of the hard-hitting tracks favored by radio stations, and instead takes on a softer, deeper sound.

While some may take this as J. Cole becoming a “boring” rapper, the true value of the hard work Cole has put in as his own songwriter and producer lies in the beautifully crafted lyrics and storytelling.

The album opens with “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, a two-minute lament over hopelessness and suicide. The following track, “Immortal,” transitions the tone from depressing to reflective and touches on the subjects of gang violence and racism. “Deja Vu” borrows the sample and beat made popular by Bryson Tiller’s “Exchange”, and resembles a conversation Cole has with an unnamed woman about the men she chooses to date. On “Neighbors” he discusses how his fame is often dismissed by people who don’t believe he achieved his status without corruption. “Foldin Clothes” is a fun track about domestic life (Cole recently had a daughter with his childhood sweetheart and wife Melissa Heholt.)

4 Your Eyez Only closes with the title track, which might be the most moving song on the album. It ties in a theme previously touched on “Change”: the death of his friend, James McMillan Jr. It serves as both a reflection on this tragic event and a message to McMillan’s daughter. The message is that while McMillan’s life had been negatively affected by crime and systematic racism (which Cole repeatedly condemns throughout the album), he redeems himself through fatherhood and love of his daughter. Through this final track, we realize that the whole album was told from McMillan’s point of view to his daughter– and in a way, a message from Cole to his own daughter. The final lyrics of the album are “Your daddy was a real n—-, not ’cause he was hard / Not because he lived a life of crime and sat behind some bars / Not because he screamed f— the law, although that was true / Your daddy was a real n—- ’cause he loved you.”

J. Cole has incredible ability when it comes to crafting songs with deeper meanings and connections, and this is exemplified with 4 Your Eyez Only. To tie in such a broad range of topics to one devastating event in an artistic manner must be extremely difficult, yet Cole does it in a way that seems effortless. Sure, the production of the tracks doesn’t radically differ from that of 2014 Forest Hills Drive, but Cole makes music that speaks to the soul, not just to the ears. He makes a much better author than a DJ.

So while much of social media expresses distaste for J. Cole’s music and fervent following, there’s no denying that he deserves some degree of respect for being such a wordsmith. Moreover, we have to recognize that an artist’s fanbase doesn’t directly correlate to them as an artist. J. Cole has actually been known for refusing to let fame and fortune get to his head (i.e. selling tickets to his show for $1). Every artist has crazy fans that will take glorification to new extremes. But Cole is a humble person with fantastic creativity and depth, and for a man who went double platinum with no features, he deserves some serious praise.

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