J.Cole's Coming of Age Track 2: January 28th (2014 Forest Hills Drive)

Due to the distortion effects on the first couplet of lyrics I was only able to make out what he was saying through my good friend rapgenius.com

Rap tune
Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune?
Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune?
I'm tryna make a million dollars off a rap tune

He is trying to figure out if rapping is really what he is going to do as a career. I think it is interesting how he says rap tune, because he is a rapper. But he also makes almost every beat in this album. Including this one.

The real is back, the ville is back
Flow bananas here, peel this back
And what you'll find is, your highness
Can paint a picture that is vivid enough to cure blindness

Being real in hip-hop is like what it sounds. It means that you aren't fake. It means that you do everything you said you've done, and are not trying to be or act more thug than you actually are. So when he has the ville following the statement the real, he is claiming Fayetteville, NC is indeed real.
Flow is bananas because its crazy. And when you look into it (peel this back) you will find that J. Cole can use his words to create situations and stories that cure not actual blindness, but I think he means cultural blindness. Some topics on this album I would have never thought about if it wasn't for J. Cole and other rappers.

Carolina's finest, you knew that already
And turned to the greatest, I proved that already
And if you would like, I do it twice
I just sharpen my blade for a minute became lost in my ways
This for my niggas that was tossed in the graves

This is pretty self explanatory. He proved the he was the greatest (with Friday Night Lights), but he had to do it again. Because he got lost in his ways (J. Cole the Sideline Story). In the last track of Born Sinner in a song called Let Nas Down he details how he sold out in J. Cole the Sideline Story. 
He had a single (his highest charting single at 13th in the billboard hot 100) called Work Out, that when you compare it to what he did on this album yeah he did sellout a lotta bit. He is proving that he is the greatest for his friends that died.

Every so often I fade deep in my thoughts and then get lost in the days
We used to play before your coffin was made
Just got the call nigga got caught with a stray
Hope he's okay

Again pretty straight forward. A stray is a stray bullet. One that wasn't meant for his friend so that means that his friend wasn't doing anything wrong.

Just got paid what Cochran got paid to free OJ
Just to share my life on the stage in front of strangers
Who know a nigga far too well, and that's the danger
Know me better than I know myself
I rip a page out my notebook in anger
And let these thoughts linger, singing

Johnnie Cochran got paid a lot to free OJ just btw. He is comparing that money to his pay check. But, all he has to do is share his life, all his insecurities and dreams to people he hasn't met. But you beter believe that people like me know him a lot. He is scared that his fans know him better than he knows himself and that sends him into a fit of rage and anger while he signs the hook...

Don't give 'em too much you
Don't let 'em take control
It's one thing you do
Don't let 'em taint your soul
If you believe in God
One thing's for sure
If you ain't aim too high
Then you aim too low

(Verse 2)
What's the price for a black man life?
I check the toe tag, not one zero in sight
I turn the TV on, not one hero in sight
Unless he dribble or he fiddle with mics

Checking the toe tag makes it sound like black people are like pieces of meat being sold by a butcher. He blames partly the way that black people are kinda viewed as worthless is because they don't have any role modelz that aren't rappers or athletes. Some of you might be pointing to Obama and to that I say that Obama grew up in the hood as much as he was born in Kenya. Not at all. Obama does not have the same life experiences as most rappers and athletes.

Look out the window cause tonight the city lit up with lights, cameras and action
May no man alive come through and damage my faction
I brought you niggas with me cause I love you like my brothers
And your mothers' like my mother

Think we need a plan of action

The bigger we get the more likely egos collide

It's just physics, please let's put our egos aside
You my niggas, and should our worst tendencies turn us into enemies

I think it is note worthy of the contrast of the word nigga in these two parts of the same verse. Thought by most white people, black people have flipped the connotation of the word to mean a positive person. Like a brother or mother. But there is also plenty of black people who also believe that the black community shouldn't use it at all. Saying that no matter how we use it it still has a negative connotation. So I think in the first part he uses the positive connotation and he uses the negative connotation to refer to brothers that are against him. Even though they are his friends he knows that anyone can have pent up rage, and that is essentially a nigga tendency. I think this way because he says our worst tendencies. So its something that him and his friends that he already described as niggas would share. I am not trying to be racist at all. This is just what I've picked up from his music along with others music as well.

I hope that we remember these
Nights fulla Hennessey
When Hov around we switch up to that D'usse
Gotta show respect, one day we tryna stay where you stay

When him and his friends are fighting he hopes that they remember the days that they were drinking and having fun. J. Cole was signed to Jay-Z's label Roc Nation. Also, Jay-Z has an endorsement to D'usse. So to show respect and to hopefully end up like him they drink D'usse when he is around.

Cause we from where you from
Not talkin' bout the slums
I'm talkin' 'bout that mind state that keep a black nigga dumb
Keep a black nigga dyin' by a black nigga gun
And keep on listening to the frontin' ass rap niggas sunYeah I said 'sun' 

J. Cole is an educated person. He graduated from St. John's University and isn't a paranoid freak. He does blame the government that keeps black people in the slums, but also keeps them dumb, because all poor kids (not just black) aren't doing well in school. This is because there doesn't seem to be value in it. So instead the poor are reduced to dying due to gang violence. But, the gangs are black on black which is crazy to think that the government would have some hand in that mind state.  Now the last two lines I had to look up on rap genius. According to them:

Moreover, J. Cole is paying hommage to the Five-Percent Nation which is an American Organisation founded in New-York by saying ‘Sun’.
In this organisation, men are called ‘Sun’ and women ‘Moon’. Many artists referenced this slang from Nas to Erykah Badu.

This is New York's finest
For 11 winters straight I took on New York's climate
Like show me New York's ladder
I climb it and set the bar so high that you gotta get Obama to force the air force to find it

Never mind it, you'll never reach that
Cole is the hypnotist, control the game whenever he snap
That's every track, nigga
This is kinda just badass. The last lines is cool af. He compares hypnotist that snap to put people under a trance to whenever he mentally snaps and gets angry. You hear a lot of anger in this song.

(Hook)
I ain't serve no pies, I ain't slang no dope
I don't bring no lies, niggas sang my quotes
I don't play no games, boy I ain't no joke

He hasn't dealt drugs. He doesn't speak lies and people have said his lyrics (much like to what I am doing here).

Like the great Rakim, when I make my notes
You niggas might be L or you might be Kane
Or you might be Slick Rick with 19 chains
Or you might be Drizzy Drake or Kendrick Lamar
But check your birth date nigga, you ain't the God
Nah you ain't the God
Nigga, Cole the God
January 28th

J. Cole says he isn't like any of these rappers. All who are very esteemed and well regarded. But, he does say he is the God. Which is Rakim. Who was also born on January 28th.

This song is a good thing to keep in the back of your mind during the whole album. Its 4 minutes long but goes by way farther than that. The political impact it also has makes it very noteworthy. Again a very somber song.

J. Cole's Coming of Age Track 1: Intro (2014 Forest Hills Drive)

Do you wanna be? That is the question J. Cole asks. Possibly my favorite part of this whole album is his genuine delivery during the introduction. To me it sounds like he is on the brink of flowing into tears during this track. The first part of this song is him asking 3 questions. The first being do you wanna be? He says this in his unique delivery which to me makes it mysterious. Because as humans we all be. I am being right now. But, we all know that there is something that is supposed to be added there. So when he adds happy, and free. He separates these two ideas. As if you can only choose one. You can either be happy or free. Which is a sad way to look at life no doubt. His next lyrics are supposed to relate to the struggle of himself and the people around him.

Free from pain, free from scars
Free to sing, free from bars
In this first part he names essentially basic emotions and fears. I'm scared of pain. I'm scared of pain that is basic human emotion. Then he mentions free to sing, the idea of anyone able to say anything they want in this world, but that idea contrasts when he says free from bars. This can mean 2 things. Free from jail bars, or free from rap bars. Bars of course meaning how to measure how long the verse is. That is common musical vernacular. Jail bars keep all those previous ideas not a possibility. In prison you will have pain, scars, and chances are they won't let you sing to clear your mind. But also being free from rap bars is scary. He loves rapping. He wouldn't do it unless he loved it. Sadly in Hip-Hop it is about selling records. Usually the common music listener doesn't want to think about pain and scars. Also when he says sing he compares that to rapping bars. When you sing you are free, but rapping has rules and restrictions. You have to stay on beat, 16 bars in one verse, you have to have the right amount of syllables. So I think he is saying he would rather sing.


Free my dawgs, you're free to go
Block is hot, the streets is cold

These lines just keep along with the prison theme. In other songs he has mentioned friends that are now in prison. So he is sympathizing with those individuals.

Free to love, to each his own
Free from bills, free from pills
You roll it loud, the speakers blow
Life get hard, you ease your soul
It cleanse ya mind, learn to fly

These are basic freedoms that we all would love to have. But, where he grew up all he knew about was either being an athlete or a rapper. Having enough money to not worry about bills is a good dream. But pills, weed, loud music in the club all come with that lifestyle. But, he want's to be free from all that. As evident in the song. He then says that It, cleanse ya mind. It being ease your soul. Which is to just blatantly relax. When he relaxes without pills, weed, and loud speakers he learned to fly.

Then reach the stars, you take the time
To look behind and say, "Look where I came
Look how far I done came"
They say that dreams come true
And when they do, that there's a beautiful thing

This last part here is the saddest thing. As I mentioned in the introduction to the album he had a platinum selling album one of the best accomplishments in the music industry. But, his dreams haven't even come true yet. He hasn't reached the his dream yet. He finishes the song with another round of do you wanna be.

https://youtu.be/NtjrFw4i2Qo
This is the music video he made. Look hard at the facial expressions he makes. I use Rap Genius for finding the lyrics. Here is a link to that website.
http://genius.com/4481449
I did not rip anybodies opinions off I have came to these conclusions on my own.

2014 Forest Hills Drive Introduction to the Album

2014 Forest Hills Drive is the third studio album by J. Cole. The preceding album was Born Sinner which went platinum along with 2014 Forest Hills Drive. He made the album to his own liking and the label respected that. So when he made the album this is his vision, without being tainted by anyone else's influence other than his friends. If you draw your attention to the album art to your right you see that he is sitting on top of a building. That building is 2014 Forest Hills Drive, the house he grew up in. So this album is essentially from what I see his life story up to this point in time. The album Born Sinner seemed to be a darker time in his life so many expected 2014 Forest Hills Drive to go back to his old style of funny, witty, introspective, and tracks which he had on Friday Night Lights, The Warm Up, and The Come Up. But more on those later. An interesting thing about this album is that he doesn't really mention him graduating to Saint John's University almost at all. I believe the reasoning behind this is that he is trying to make more relatable music. Because, not every rapper has even gone to college much less graduate. So 2014 Forest Hills Drive is essentially his life minus college. I divide this album into essentially 3 parts. The first six tracks are J. Cole's coming of age. The next three are his sellout, depressed, upset, love struggles part of the album. While the last 4 are looking forward to the future. So without further ado, I will be trying to get the coming of age part done. Stay tuned for more. I'll leave y'all with some memes, that will hopefully make sense in the future.

New Album Review Is...

I'll be review 2014 Forest Hills Drive. In comments leave more albums to review in the comments!

Current State of Music (IMO)

The state of music right now is that labels are trying to pick up the youngest and most marketable talent possible as early as possible. For evidence of this being true look at who is in the top 3 of the billboard charts as of June 28th 2016. Desiigner is a rapper from Brooklyn, New York. A good borough if you are trying to rap. I mean look at the talent Notorious B.I.G. (but can we agree Biggie Smallz is a better pseudonym?), Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and DMX. Not to mention those four all went to the same school. Oh you haven't heard of the George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School? Well sorry. But that's besides the point.

Desiigner (according to his Wikipedia page) began rapping after he was shot at the age of 14. And since he was born in 1997 that would have made the year 2011. When checking the year end charts of 2011 to see what song holds his current spot at #3 on the charts is Katy Perry's Firework. Oh baby! but I digress. The article goes on to say that his official debut single was released on SoundCloud in December 2015. So that means he had 4 years till he released something for the world at least to our knowledge. I'm sure he did shows and recorded stuff before this but, just for the sake of officials I'm just going to continue. So then after the first single he released Panda a few days later still late 2015. He was signed to Kanye's label GOOD MUSIC (first sign by one of personal favorite rappers and the new president of said label Pusha-T!) only 2 months after releasing Panda.

Now here is where the state of music starts getting interesting. What was it that Pusha-T found in Desiigner that made him sign him after only 2 singles getting released? And I'll tell you it was the future, or should I say Future. Future at this point in time is kinda regarded as the best rapper out right now. Future is from Atlanta and started making noteworthy mixtapes in 2011 (coincidence?). He makes trap music which originated from the Southern United States. Which is not sadly New York where Desiigner is from. It is kinda obvious that Desiigner is trying to be Future. I don't know if people can really argue with that. Also Trap is the new thing in Hip-Hop so it is only fair that Desiigner rides this wave of popularity. I don't have a problem with his locational appropriation, I do have a problem with his signing so early into his life. Desiigner is 19! Can you believe what that is like? Legally he can't even drink in the United States! Future at the time is 32 and he hasn't even had a number 1 single by his own. So I guess the state of music is trying to ride the trends as fast and as hard as you can. While signing the youngest and most marketable talent. Because after all why try and get Future at age 32 who has some experience in the music industry, when you can get the 19 year old Desiigner who (to my guess) will be trying to ride trends for the rest of his career due to his inexperience and guidance by GOOD MUSIC.

The music industry has never been marshmallows and chocolate. It's been rough and has destroyed a many young musicians financially and mentally. So I send my best to Desiigner and Future, and the state of music seems to be just as it has been the whole time.

Jackson Freier