By: Lucyinthesky
8.5/10
I admit I love hip-hop, especially the good kind. By saying that, I mean the kind that you can feel the rapper’s passion as they say their rhymes, when you feel you can relate to the song and feel a connection with the message that the singer is sending you, and getting lost not only in the rhymes but in the beat of the song as well, that is good hip-hop. If you ask me which rappers I declare the best at the moment when it comes to telling a story within a song, cleverness, style, thought-provoking, confidence, passion, my first pick would be J. Cole and finally his debut album “Cole World: The Sideline Story” is here.
I found out about J. Cole one day while I was on Twitter and the #1 hashtag worldwide was “#FridayNightLights“. I clicked on it and found out it was the title of a mixtape released by a rapper named J. Cole. The buzz about it was so much, I decided to download it and give it a try. One of the best decisions ever made, after downloading “Friday Night Lights” mixtape, I downloaded every other J. Cole song from previous mixtapes and was highly impressed that someone being so talented as he is didn’t even have an album out yet. From then on, it was full on support from my behalf to have people know about J. Cole, because nowadays he is a rapper that deserves to be recognized as one of the best and nothing less. After being signed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label, you know that if Hova signed him the kid means business, so I kept looking forward to the day that “Cole World: The Sideline Story” would drop.
The day was here, September 27 2011, first thing I did that morning was tweet “Cole World, no blanket“, a quote that J. Cole always says in some of his songs, and then proceeded to listen to the album. I was very impressed so many of the songs from previous mixtapes made the cut, like “In The Morning“, “Who Dat“, “Lights Please” (which was the song made Jay-Z sign him) and one that left me very curious was “Dollar and a Dream III“. Why the curiosity? Because J. Cole might have finally made it with an album out, but is humble enough to test himself in the same song throughout the years, doing “Dollar and a Dream” for the first time in “The Come Up” mixtape, then part II in “The Warm Up” mixtape and finally part III in his debut album “Cole World: The Sideline Story“, this song clearly shows his evolution as a rapper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REwW2R2q2Bw
The title for “Cole World: The Sideline Story” according to Cole means that since he was signed to Jay-Z’s label “it feels as if you’re on your favorite basketball team and you’re just waiting on the sidelines waiting on your coach to put you on the game”. I feel as if Cole isn’t discovered yet, and needs to be on the spotlight so people get to experience his lyrical genius, the way the metaphors/punchlines in the songs make you go “wow”, unlike other rappers that I shall not mention who say over and over that they’re the best in the game, yet fail to deliver lyrics that impress and overall make you think. J. Cole is the future, if we could get more rappers like him, people wouldn’t look down on hip-hop so much, he’s educated and he knows what he talks about: he could be your mainstream hip-hop guy that talks about buying expensive things as well as the underground one that talks about his struggles. “Cole World: The Sideline Story” is a solid album that exposes J.Cole’s lyrical abilities, as well as production skills (he produced 13 songs out of 16) and gives hip-hop a breath of fresh air with topics never heard before in songs, like “Lost Ones” that talks about a teenage mother-to-be contemplating abortion. “Cole World” is a thought-provoking album, making you remember, feel inspired and not being afraid of being on the bench because soon enough it will be your time to shine, just like it happened for J. Cole. This album in my opinion is amazing, but it still needed a little bit more work to be considered an instant classic, so far is the best we’ve gotten in hip-hop in 2011 besides “Watch The Throne“. Most rappers can rap to you about girls, but only a few of them like Cole will tell you their own life perspective and find a way to connect with the listener. Hopefully this will give Cole the mainstream exposure he needs to stay on top of the game, because even though he’s with Roc Nation, to me most people still don’t know the greatness about the North Carolina kid who is still waiting on the sidelines.
Some of my favorite songs of the album are “Lights Please“, “Lost Ones“, “Breakdown“, and “Dollar and a Dream III“
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— Cole World, no blanket!
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