J. Cole detailed how the success of his album 2014 Forest Hills Drive led to a lack of inspiration for his follow-up 4 Your Eyez Only in a piece for The Players’ Tribune. In his story titled “The Audacity,” the Dreamville Records co-founder described a sense of aimlessness he felt when he began working on his fourth studio LP.
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“I found myself downstairs in the basement of the Sheltuh, a home studio I set up in the suburbs of North Carolina,” he recalled. “Alone, and surrounded by walls covered with timeless images of heroic Black artists, I sat with pen in hand, notebook on lap, and a beat playing loudly on repeat. Hours passed as I struggled to find motivation to write. As an artist, this wasn’t that unusual, but what was strange for me is that this had been my dominant mood for the past six months. Generally uninspired.”
He continued, “Sure, every now and then I would stumble upon some intense creative alignment, a rush of inspiration, that would lead to songs I considered to be some of my best ever, ‘4 Your Eyez Only,’ ‘False Prophets,’ and some never heard by the public, but these moments felt few and far between. Most of the material I was writing was aimless, unfocused, and honestly kind of depressing. As I sat there staring at the empty page in my notebook, I asked myself, ‘What’s up?’ My relationship with music felt like a marriage that was at a crossroads. There were no arguments, just occasional bland conversations followed by lots of silence that said it all. The fire was gone.”
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This shit was both hella challenging and mad fulfilling to write. Thank you @PlayersTribune for the platform. ❤️https://t.co/XGE47bqhGy
— J. Pronouncing american english 3rd edition pdf. Cole (@JColeNC) July 20, 2020
Earlier in the piece, Cole described how he “had some time to waste” for the first time since college after finishing his 2014 Forest Hills Drive campaign. While he enjoyed this relaxing point in his life, he admitted it left him feeling less passionate about being an MC.
“I would come to realize that the newfound comfort and freedom I felt in my everyday life had created a quiet distance between me and my passion for the craft,” he explained. “As I looked inside of myself, I noticed an absence of something that had been with me for well over a decade. The hunger was missing.”
He continued, “When I started rapping it was the competition that drove me. I had a burning desire to be the best in the world and to prove it with every verse. In my younger days, that hunger showed itself in the bars. But now, at 31, I became an artist who barely cared for punchlines, wittiness, or for the standard measurements of what determines a rapper’s fitness. I was much more concerned with story, emotion, and message. And while these elements led to a lot of fulfilling moments for me, I couldn’t deny that the competitive edge was missing.”
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For Cole, it was a troublesome revelation. At this crossroads in his career, he began to question himself.
“The desire to prove something to myself and to the world was on its deathbed,” he wrote. “While that sounds liberating, for me it was worrying. Trying to prove something was all I had ever really known, and truly I loved the pursuit. I wondered if this was the very spot on this long journey that all my favorites — the ones that lived long enough — had reached before. The moment where the blessing of success places a curse on the very same drive that brought it to you in the first place, and the words you write moving forward never surpass the ones you wrote in the past. I had to have an honest talk with myself.”
Luckily for Cole and his devoted fans, his drive and hunger returned. Read the conclusion of his story over at The Players’ Tribune.
Album Review, Hip-Hop, Music, Music Reviews0
Following the release of his second studio album ‘Born Sinner’ just last year, J. Cole returns with the succeeding project ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive’. The title of the album derives from the address of the house that Cole used to live in as a child, and subsequently throughout the album he revisits moments from his childhood that have affected his life.
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The opening track, ‘January 28th’, is a typically smooth introduction from the North Carolina wordsmith, soulfully setting the overall tone of the project, similarly to the way he began his acclaimed 2010 mixtape ‘Friday Night Lights’. Despite calling on a number of different producers, which is a first on a J. Cole album, the cohesion of the record is not affected, and people may argue that it is in fact improved because of it. Criticism of his previous albums that only included production from Cole himself, came from the feeling that the bodies of work did not include enough peak points, allowing the record to just drift unnoticed from start to finish. This cannot be said for ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive’, as listeners are treated to a explosive change of direction from Cole, on back to back songs ‘A Tale Of 2 Citiez’ and ‘Fire Squad’.
On ‘A Tale Of 2 Citiez’ Cole speaks of the differences faced between a young man staying in his hometown trying to make money by any means, and another young man attempting to move on to bigger and hopefully better things by seeking higher education in a different city. This, of course, mirrors Cole’s own situation that he faced growing up and he creates a vivid picture of such. J. Cole’s aggressive flow as well as the gritty production helps to grab the listener’s attention, and the same can be said for ‘Fire Squad’ where his much-publicised lyrics about the success of white Hip Hop & R’n’B artists included mentioning Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Iggy Azalea and Macklemore. Cole remarks that white artists that make music of black origin are often favoured in terms of how successful they can be, specifically with regards to the awards they receive (e.g. Macklemore beating Kendrick Lamar to the 2014 Grammy for ‘Best Rap Album’).
Cole, as was the case on his previous album ‘Born Sinner’, chose not to have any verses from other rappers on his latest album, which is not necessarily a negative trait. Although, something that can be viewed as a negative was the neglect of any guest vocalists on the album, especially considering Cole’s production style that often caters for such artists. Instead, Cole stretches his vocal ability to its limits, leaving the listener pondering how much more effective certain songs could have been if a truly accomplished singer took the lead on certain parts of the album. ‘Love Yourz’ is an example of where Cole could have used the help of guest vocals, despite the song being a potential standout track, as he speaks on people learning how to appreciate their own lives, instead of coveting the lives of others.
Some criticised J. Cole for using the same samples from hip hop classics when producing tracks for ‘Born Sinner’, particularly Outkast’s ‘Da Art of Story Telling’ on ‘Land Of The Snakes’ and A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Electric Relaxation’ (Ronnie Foster – ‘Mystic Brew’) on ‘Forbidden Fruit [Ft. Kendrick Lamar]’. He’s followed suit on ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive’ via ‘St. Tropez’, this time opting for use of Esther Phillips’ ‘That’s All Right With Me’ which was used on Mobb Deep’s classic ‘Give Up The Goods (Just Step)’ from their 1995 Album ‘The Infamous’. Cole’s attempts this time around should avoid disapproval as he’s completely altered the mood of the sample compared to the Mobb Deep version, something he didn’t really achieve on ‘Born Sinner’. ‘St. Tropez’ paints the picture of his transition from an aspiring rapper to the established artist he has become today, explaining the highs and lows of the journey.
Words by Nathan Fisher
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