For years J. Cole has been considered one of the most promising up and coming producer/rappers in Hip-Hop. For those unaware, J. Cole is originally from North Carolina, he began writing lyrics in his early teens, but living in North Carolina, a place not known for its Hip-Hop scene Cole had no one to make beats for him, his mother who encouraged his potential rap career bought him an 808 machine and he began making his own beats. At the age of 17 he went to New York to try and further his career, he would have a chance meeting with Jay-Z, whom Cole would try to hand his demo to, Jay-Z at the time wanted nothing to do with him. It was soon after that, that Cole put that demo online available for anyone to download, the demo would be the mixtape called "The Come Up". That mixtape created a buzz around J. Cole, a lot of people, myself included, liked his throwback sounding beats (think Kanye or NO Id) and hard drums, and his story telling lyrical style, which has since become a trademark of his (think Common or Nas). While "The Come Up" gained him fans it wasn't until the 2009 mixtape "The Warm Up" that Cole would become an Internet sensation, and would become regarded as one of the best up and coming rappers, so much so that Jay-Z himself took an interest in Cole, and signed him to his label, J. Cole is even featured on Jay's "Blueprint 3". Since 2009 Cole's first "actual" album has been eagerly anticipated, in the meantime Cole released one more mixtape "Friday Night Lights" and did a series called "Any Given Sunday" where he would give away music from the upcoming album, or unreleased material, or debut music videos, basically his version of Kanye's "G.O.O.D. Fridays" a while back when he was promoting "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy".
Today, J. Cole's first album came out "Cole World: The Sideline Story", the first thing to notice is how much more polished the production is, obviously that would be the case compared to the mixtapes, but only one song has the feel Cole showcased on his previous mixtapes I thought and that was the single "Work Out" which features a sample from Kanye's "New Workout Plan" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", outside of that the production is very polished and clean sounding (if that makes any since) and one of the things I like so much about Cole's mixtapes was his production, so the album loses points for me because of that. J Cole does handle the large part of the production which is ably produced, but nothing that blew me away, none of the beats stick out (with a few exceptions), and all kind of blend together after a while.
However, J Cole is not just known for his production, his lyrics are just as big a part of what he does, and for me his lyrical content makes this album. Cole's story teller style is (for the most part) on full display on the album, one song I like a whole lot is called "Lost Ones" it tells the same story about abortion from 3 different points of views, from the man's side, the woman's side, and an omnipresent side, its a really uniquely told track.
Unlike most Hip-Hop albums out this album has very few features on it, only Jay-Z, Drake, Trey Songz, and Missy Elliott are featured on 4 of the 18 tracks. As rare as that is for any current day Hip-Hop album, that is especially rare for a rookie rapper, the big surprise is J. Cole not only doesn't need the assistance, the four tracks with featuring artists are my least favorite on the whole album as they all seem to disrupt Cole's lyrical style. Particularly "In the Morning" which features Drake, that song almost put me to sleep, and Drake sounds like he's either sick or just doesn't want to be there.
And not to get sidetracked, but what happened to Drake. I was listening to his guest appearance and he sounds bored, or lifeless, like he has no energy. Just the other day I decided to listen to his "So Far Gone" mixtape, and there is so much energy and diversity between each track. "So Far Gone" like "The Warm Up" is a classic mixtape that it really bugs me that Drake has become this flat, lifeless rapper, who's flow NEVER CHANGES from one track to the next, anyone that doubts Drake needs to re-listen to "So Far Gone", I honestly forgot Drake used to be so good. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to "Take Care"...prove me wrong Drake.
Sorry for the rant, another thing about the guest appearances was how useless Missy's appearance was, any generic R&B singer could have done what she did. I was genuinely excited when I saw that Portsmouth's own Missy Elliott was appearing on this album, so it was upsetting that she delivered so little.
As the title would suggest this really is Cole's World, this album truly shines on the tracks that only he appears on and there are a lot of highlights. My favorite song is called "Sideline Story", which gives people just becoming introduced to Cole a good backstory of who he is, as I said already "Lost Ones" is a really great track, if for no other reason Cole's unique story telling structure. "God's Gift", "Rise And Shine", "Breakdown" and "Work Out" are the best produced tracks on the album, and are also really strong tracks. Also, I've never really cared for Intro's and Interludes, sometimes they can be great like Kanye's "College Dropout" but mostly add nothing to the album, but in this case, I actually like the Intro and Interlude, Cole tells a very funny story about the day he got signed to Jay-Z's label in the Interlude.
For the most part the only tracks that don't work for me are "Nobody's Perfect", "Mr. Nice Watch", "In the Morning", and "Can't Get Enough", which as I said oddly enough are the four tracks which contain featured artist, which is really strange, normally those are the tracks chosen as singles that everyone seems to like, not the ones I'll skip the next time I listen to it. Another thing which surprised me is the album gets better the deeper you get, with a few exceptions, most of the tracks I really liked are towards the end of the album.
I will say that I was slightly underwhelmed by "Cole World" if for no other reason than just how great Cole's previous mixtapes are, in terms of Hip-Hop albums currently out, this is just as good, if not better than the majority of them. Not to get on my soapbox, but Hip-Hop needs someone like J. Cole, Cole is a storyteller first, and a rapper second, that used to be the way in Hip-Hop, not to get on Lil Wayne, but Lil Wayne's frantic style changed the game, and made more rappers try to be clever versus tell a story, which at its core is what Hip-Hop is. Game's "RED Album" started to help change that, and "Cole World" and J. Cole's lyrical style is continuing to help change that. Personally I hope he keeps doing what he's doing, and I can't wait to hear what's next.
Rating 3.5/5
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