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.
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