After three top charted mix tapes, rapper J. Cole dropped his highly anticipated album “Cole World: The Sideline Story” last month.
The 22-year-old North Carolina native is signed to well-known rapper Jay Z’s label Roc Nation. He has released three mix tapes including “The Come Up,” “The Warm Up” and “Friday Night Lights.” Cole was also featured on XXL’s version of Top 10 Freshmen in late 2010.
The album contains 16 songs including Cole’s first single,” “Work Out” and other songs like Dollar and a Dream III,” “Mr. Nice Watch” and “Cole World” and my personal favorite, “Friday Night Lights.”
Cole’s lyricism is amazing on this album. In the song “Work Out,” Cole talks about living the fast life and what it comes with such as not being able to be in a relationship: “What your n*gga make in one year, that’s unfair but / So is life, take a chance roll a dice/ Money can’t buy you love cause it’s over priced/ Don’t overthink just hope it’s right/I’m only here for the night.”
Another album favorite is “Mr. Nice Watch.” In the song, Cole sings “It cost me a lot, my chain and my watch / They say time is money but really it’s not / If we ever go broke girl, then me is all we got / And you can’t make that back, no you can’t make that back / So let’s ball while we here, let’s ball while we here / Like ain’t no tomorrow, like ain’t no next year.”
Cole is basically saying money can’t buy us the most important thing which is time, and when you die you can’t take the money with you so spend it. I love this song because it emphasizes the idea that life is not promised to anyone, so instead of pinching pennies and being stressed out about money, his message is to just live. You can earn money back but time is what can’t be earned back.
About 80 percent of the album was written and produced by Jermaine Cole himself. Guest artists include Drake, Missy Eliot and Jay-Z. In my opinion, although Missy Elliot has a well-known name, I don’t believe she brought much to “Nobody’s Perfect.”
The must-hears” of this album are “The Breakdown” “Cole World” and “Lost Ones.” Rolling Stone magazine says “Cole World” is expected to hit No. 1 on the Top 100 on Billboards.
In a recent interview between Cole and world-renowned hip-hop magazine Complex, Cole said that he had to learn the difference between a good album and a classic. A good album is where every sing is a good song, but a classic just “flows,” you can listen to a classic from front to back.
Overall, J. Cole has definitely provided his fans and consumers with a solid classic hip-hop album.
