I agreed with the public sentiment and saw Kendrick and J Cole as the kings of the rap game, so when “Everybody Dies” dropped I ate it up. The final bass drop of “ G.O.M.D” and the lyrics on the outro of “ Fire Squad” were some of my favorite moments in 2014’s music. What’s personally tragic is that I loved J. People won’t want to listen to his music if they’re constantly reminded of their irritating J. Ultimately, this reflects poorly on Cole himself. If you direct attention to the album claiming there’s more to be found, you shouldn’t be mad when people come back empty-handed, especially if you can’t even explain what they missed. Cole has exclusivity to meaningful lyrics is just ignorant.Ĭole’s superfans have accidentally painted him as a pseudo-intellectual since the release of 4 Your Eyes Only. Artists like Mick Jenkins, 6LACK, Kendrick, Joey Bada$$ and Logic have dedicated parts of their careers to creating “woke” music. “Intellectual rap” used to be harder to come by, but rappers can make a career off of social commentary in today’s age. Saying that others have an inability to understand his lyrics is an easy cop out of the conversation and makes the person saying it sound stupid and insecure. The album isn’t that hard to decipher, through interviews, the HBO documentary and multiple listens, it’s easy to see that Cole is spitting social commentary through his dead friend’s story as well as his own. What made me grow to resent it was said fanboys insisting that this album was one of the best albums ever made, or insinuating that the rest of audiences just didn’t understand the intellectual themes of Cole’s work. I still enjoyed the album for what it is. That’s okay, and even Cole admits in his HBO documentary “ 4 Your Eyez Only” that the album is more about what he personally wants to say to his listeners than anything else. “Immortal” low-key slaps and “4 Your Eyez Only” is a well-told story, but, as a whole, the album was underwhelming.
Cole’s die hard fans could have stepped back and tried to see the perspective of the rest of the hip-hop community.
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