J Cole Essay

Jermaine Lamarr Cole widely known as his stage name J Cole is an award-winning record producer and American hip-hop recording artist, and he got there by himself. Jermaine was born on January 28, 1985, in Frankfurt, Germany on a U.S. Army Base to his mother a white German postal worker and his father an African-American soldier, who left his mother when Cole was a baby. At a young age taught himself how to play the piano which played a huge in his production career. In this essay, we will go into depth about how Cole came from a no-name artist to making hip-hop history. At first, Cole was releasing his music locally and wasn’t gaining much popularity. Cole first began to be recognized as a rapper after the release of his debut mixtape, The …show more content…
At the end of 2014 on December 9th, J Cole released his album 2014 Forest Hills Drive which was the address of his childhood home, and this album had no featuring artists. Releasing an album with no features was a rare occurrence in the hip-hop industry and was only done by top-tier artists and even then it was difficult for their albums to be successful. When Cole’s album was dropped it was like listening to hit after hit after hit. With only 13 tracks on the album, seven of them were hits. This album did not only go platinum but it went double platinum with no featuring artists the first time in history that this has ever happened. After this was confirmed Cole was considered to many to be one of the top ten best rappers of all time. This feat also earned him his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album of the Year.There was a lot of hype surrounding Cole’s name at the time and he was expected to follow up with an even better album than his previous. Cole also acts as a producer alongside his hip-hop career, producing singles for artists like Kendrick Lamar and Janet Jackson, as well as handling the majority of the production in his own projects. Then at the beginning of 2015 Cole went public with his newly found record label Dreamville Records and a non-profit organization called the Dreamville Foundation. With this foundation, Cole housed single mothers rent-free at his childhood home …show more content…
Then in December of 2016, Cole released his fourth studio album 4 Your Eyez Only. This album also contained no featuring artist similar to his last album. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum in April 2017. This album showcased even fewer songs than his previous album with only ten songs but the album was still highly successful. After the release, Cole said in an interview that he would no longer be featured on other artists track because he wants to do his own thing. He also rapped in his 2016 hit single “False Prophets” in which he rapped about old hip-hop artists in which release new music trying to top their “old and better” music in which they continue to fail to do so. In one of his verses, he says “Therefore from here on out, my hair grown out, I care nothin’ bout opinions.” Inferring that he only wants to focus on himself. And that other negatives opinions he doesn’t care about. Cole then released a second hit single in early 2017 called “everybody dies” in which he raps about how no rapper in our generation is on his level and the title meaning “no one’s safe” as if everyone is getting dissed. HIs latest release was in 2017 a single “High for Hours” which debuted at #1 on Billboard 100