Artist Spotlight: J. Cole

I know I have said a lot of artists are "my shit." Wale is my shit, I have been following the dude for two years. Drake is my shit, I have been bumping him ever since "So Far Gone" dropped. Blu is my shit, when my boy Colin played me "Below The Heavens" for the first time I was in awe. Curren$y is my shit, Asher Roth is my shit, I could go on and on but you understand me. Everybody has their artist that they lay claim to. You discovered him before any of your friends did, and although probably thousands of people heard him before you did, that is your artist. That is like Wale to me. But I may have found someone that rivals, if not beats, the excitement and amazement that I felt when I first heard Wale. You know, that "Wait a minute, what did he say?" feeling. Lyrics that make you press pause on the Ipod and rewind the track so you can fully understand what the MC just said. Well, ladies and gentleman, I bring you J.Cole. Surfing around nahright, and Onsmash, all the regular hip-hop blogs, I had heard of this kid, but never really bothered to look in to him. With Asher and Curren$y putting out new music and Big Sean dropping a mixtape a few weeks ago, I had enough music to listen to at the time. The I read on Wale's Twitter that J. Cole was going to be on his highly anticipated mixtape, "Back To The Feature." So I was like, ok, this kid has to be decent if Wale is working with him. Then I read that J. Cole was the first signee to the brand new label, Roc Nation, started and managed by Jay-Z. So I thought to myself, Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers of all time, started his own label, and this is the first kid he signed? Like, the very first? The face of his label? He has go to be dope. So I checked him out, downloading his first mixtape, The Come Up, and then recently bumping the sampler to his upcoming mixtape, The Warm Up. I was blown away. On laid back, piano he beats, he sounds like Blu. On sped up beats he reminds me of a hungry Kanye West mixed with a little bit of Jay-Z. From Fayetteville, NC, J. Cole is absolutely dope. I may be a little late to this kid, but he has less than 1,000 followers on Twitter so, I can't be that late right? He can rap about the struggle, he can rap about girls, he can rap about money, he can rap about life. He spits about anything and does it seamlessly. 10 minutes ago I was sitting in my bed with my headphones on, listening to The Warm Up Sampler. A song came on where Cole raps over the "93 Til Infinity" beat by Souls Of Mischief, a classic hip-hop song. Not only does Cole destroy the beat...he says this:

"Far from a thug but I'll drop em/Far from a scrub but I'll mock them/Watch em/Better leave them alone like Stockton"

Now if you don't understand the brilliance of this line, let me help you. Most people, even if you don't like basketball, know the Utah Jazz combo of Karl Malone and John Stockton. So Cole says, "Leave them alone like Stockton" which equals, "Leave the Malone like Stockton." So sick. I have never heard this line used in any hip-hop song before. It just blew my mind, so I got out my laptop and started blogging. Check out his video below, called "A Dollar and a Dream II" and get hip to J. Cole because the kid is going to be huge.



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