Latest Release
- JUL 3, 2024
- 1 Song
- 2014 Forest Hills Drive · 2014
- Born Sinner (Deluxe Version) · 2013
- 2014 Forest Hills Drive · 2014
- Almost Healed · 2023
- 4 Your Eyez Only · 2016
- Born Sinner (Deluxe Version) · 2013
- RESET · 2018
- 2014 Forest Hills Drive · 2014
- 4 Your Eyez Only · 2016
- KOD · 2018
Essential Albums
- Named after his childhood home, J. Cole’s highly revered third studio album sticks to the Fayetteville, NC rapper’s well-established formula, featuring several self-produced cuts in which warm, old-school samples underpin lyrics about life’s weighty lessons. But unlike earlier offerings, 2014 Forest Hills Drive makes hard pills easy to swallow, as the rapper finds his footing and perfects the balance between conscious and commercial. The album also finds Cole trying to balance the coexistence of darkness and light, with the smile-inducing “Wet Dreamz” pouring into poignant cuts like “03’ Adolescence.” All the while, Cole’s lyrical approach is as unpretentious as his wardrobe, with the MC delivering lessons on cultural appropriation, relatable childhood faux pas, and the true meaning of life. Thanks to its unflinching confidence, playful narratives, and soulful reflections, 2014 Forest Hills Drive would prove to be Cole’s most successful album—culturally and critically—upon its release in 2014. It would go on to sell more than 3 million copies, thanks in part to a daring (and deeply personal) marketing campaign: Cole announced the record less than a month before its drop date, and in the lead-up to release day, the rapper invited a group of his biggest fans to the actual 2014 Forest Hills Drive for a listening session (later, Cole turned that very home into rent-free housing for single mothers). To this day, 2014 Forest Hills Drive remains a crucial entry in the J. Cole catalog: an album that draws on his past, while also giving listeners a glimpse of his future.
- Guest verses on Cole's second studio album come from 50 Cent ("New York Times") and Kendrick Lamar ("Forbidden Fruit"), but it's the R&B touches that imbue the project with its defining soul. TLC's T-Boz and Chilli bring a summer sheen to "Crooked Smile," Miguel helps turn "Power Trip" into a melancholic lament on love, and the Dirty Projectors' Amber Coffman graces the dramatic "She Knows."
Artist Playlists
- The rare rapper capable of reconciling the conscious with the commercial.
- No theatrics, just straight-up realness.
- Thought-provoking gems buried in the rapper's discography.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- The artists that inspired the rapper from Forest Hills Drive.
- Every song Drake and J. Cole are performing on their massive joint tour.
- J. Cole classics in the mix.
- Their 2018 collaboration “a lot” is a classic.
- These two icons had collaborated before, but this song is the one.
- There’s more to “January 28th” than J. Cole’s birthday.
About J. Cole
Raised on 2Pac, Biggie, Nas, and JAY-Z, J. Cole emerged in the 2010s as a kind of torchbearer for serious hip-hop. He takes on capital-T topics with an earnestness—and moral imperative—that most rappers seem to avoid. A North Carolina native (born in Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1985), Cole moved to New York City on scholarship to St. John’s University, graduating magna cum laude while making beats on the side, at one point waiting outside JAY-Z’s studio for three hours to give him a CD. Jay dismissed him initially, but circled back a year or so later on the strength of Cole’s mixtapes, making him the first signee to the Roc Nation label. Cole’s since gone on to release a string of ambitious, increasingly confident albums, often meditating on single subjects at length: 2018’s KOD, for example, offered a sustained look at addiction, while several songs on 2016’s 4 Your Eyez Only were written from the perspective of a friend killed in his early twenties after leaving the drug game—a composite of people Cole knew from childhood. Despite the gravity of his subjects (and his sobering delivery), Cole—like his occasional collaborator Kendrick Lamar—is the rare artist who's managed to reconcile the conscious with the commercial, balancing his conceptual side with giant singles like “Work Out,” “Deja Vu,” and “ATM.”
- HOMETOWN
- Frankfurt, Germany
- BORN
- January 28, 1985
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap