No amount of success, he raps, has saved him from fearing “a Trayvon kind of fate, even when your crib sit on a lake/Even when your plaques hang on a wall/Even when the president jam your tape.”
The one song on “4 Your Eyez Only” described as being “inspired by true events” is about how fearful neighbors in his suburb persuaded the police to raid his home/studio, where they found only recording equipment. That’s true musically, and also in real life. Cole has always been more earthen than that. Lamar, hip-hop’s social philosopher in chief. In this, he differs from his closest peer, Mr. Cole raps with a forceful tone at odds with his contemplative subject matter. “No Role Modelz,” one of the hits from his last album, is misogyny cloaked in nostalgic progressivism. Cole has gotten himself in trouble in the past, it’s been because he’s been prone to overreach, and to hypocrisy. At moments, though, it’s self-righteous, and if Mr. Given its intention, “False Prophets” should feel hostile, à la Kendrick Lamar’s fiery, name-taking “Control (Remix)” verse, but mostly it’s sad. (He doesn’t name names, but hints point to Kanye West, Drake and Wale.) Cole resignedly takes the measure of some of his heroes and peers. His relationship to his idols is an established part of his narrative, from “Let Nas Down,” on his 2013 album “Born Sinner” to “False Prophets,” a song released just before this new album (and not included on it) on which Mr. Cole has always openly craved belonging to the coterie of artists who specialized in this sort of hip-hop. This song is a profound addition to the out-of-vogue storytelling-rap tradition, and Mr. He tells her about their youth, about her father’s fear and paranoia, about his undimmable love for her. Cole breaks character - turns out he’s delivering the song to the daughter on behalf of her father, his childhood friend. This is hell and I don’t mean that hyperbolic I try to find employment even if it’s wiping toilets But these felonies be making life the hardest Resisting the temptation to run up and swipe a wallet Or run up on your yard, snatch your daughter bike, and pawn it That’s why I write this sonnet If the pressure get too much for me to take and I break Play this tape for my daughter and let her know my life is on it Almost nine minutes long, it’s told from the perspective of a young man certain he’s facing death, and addressing his daughter, trying to impart whatever wisdom he can should the worst happen: Elite, the album’s co-executive producer, in a recent interview with Complex.Īnd yet these songs are among his most naked and revealing, especially the title track, one of the most moving songs of this, or any, year. This is part of the album’s emotional strategy: “4 Your Eyez Only” is delivered “largely from a perspective that is not J. Cole sings, Pharrell-like, on “Ville Mentality,” a bruised lamentation that gives way to a young girl speaking about the death of her father and the ripple effect it causes at home - pain that is intergenerational and intractable. “How long can I survive with this mentality?” Mr. It traces an arc from sociopolitical resentment to personal growth. This is an album about unvarnished anxiety and uncomplicated love. Cole, doing the least, it turns out, equates to achieving the most. There’s an extraordinary sense of calm pervading this album, one of the year’s most finely drawn.įor Mr. It is spartan but sumptuous, emotionally acute but plain-spoken. His bracing new album, “4 Your Eyez Only,” is his first that feels as if it were made without the slightest concession to what’s happening elsewhere in the genre. He is a rap star without rap-star trappings, a parallel-universe champion. As the genre has become smoother, more rigorously structured and more digital, he has become raspier, looser and more organic.
In one of hip-hop’s most populist periods, he is a divider - a loyalist to out-of-fashion values and a conscientious objector to dominant trends. That assertion is a celebration of his creativity, but also a proxy for his burden.
Cole’s vision is singular, his work not a by-committee agglomeration: He managed to take their honor while playing by his rules. The phrase became a rallying cry and eventually a meme. Cole’s three major label albums to date has gone platinum, but as his online defenders will never fail to remind you, the most recent one, “2014 Forest Hills Drive,” went “platinum with no features” - that is, with no other big-name guests.