5 Takeaways from J Coles New Album, KOD

This is Cole’s third straight album with no features. The sole feature credit on the album is Cole’s altar ego KiLL Edward. This alternate persona is inspired by his step-father who separated from his mother in 2003, which led to her abusing alcohol.

• Additionally, he elaborated that his father was addicted to drugs and did not want to follow the same path.
• It wasn’t until he was in the fifth grade that Cole’s family moved into the suburbs.
• In 2019, he congratulated Cardi B after her Grammy win and gave a message to other artists who may feel overlooked.
• J. Cole is known for his songs about life’s hardships and love, but reemerged with stories of how he really coped with situations.
• This song more than the others looks at the emotional toll his hardships have taken on him; as the song progresses, Cole fights to retain his sanity.

Artistic influences

For years, everyone has alluded to something going down but danced around the details. Though he’s one of the few successful rappers to represent North Carolina, Jermaine Cole was actually born in Frankfurt, Germany, where his G.I. Eight months later, Cole’s family moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he would grow up. His parents eventually divorced, and Cole lived predominantly with his mom (who was originally from Germany), brother, and stepfather after she remarried. Many family members don’t know how to help a loved one going through mental illness and addiction.

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Let me be clear, I’m not blaming anyone, or suggesting that if you ‘spark the jay’ (marijuana), you’re wrong and will become an addict. If you want to smoke, do it, but recognize when the drugs become a problem and dependence is built. Then here we are watching our ‘friends’ fall into this trap. I think many people forget that college doesn’t last forever, and these habits just don’t disappear after graduation. These are the first few bars of the opening verse, one that many people overlook, because they don’t realize how alcoholism treatment closely related we are to the lyrics he is dropping.

J. Cole Confirms Threefold Meaning of Upcoming Album ‘KOD’

In this significant album, Cole takes a very different approach from his latest two (2014 Forest Hills Drive and 4 Your Eyez Only), which were more cohesive and style-geared. KOD takes the listener on a winding journey through the pitfalls of Cole’s life and the does j cole do drugs dark trenches that litter today’s society and music industry. In this album’s “Intro,” instead of Cole rap-singing over a beat, a woman’s soothing voice explains the nature of pain and how humans have a choice on how to deal with it. The end of this track is a repetition of the mantra, “Choose Wisely.” This woman’s voice appears more throughout the album and it provides a meaningful compliment to the songs. On “Once an Addict — Interlude,” Cole tells an autobiographical story recounting his mother’s alcohol abuse and how it unintentionally passed depression onto him.

• “Same Drugs” by Chance the Rapper can still make me cry.
• Pointed out by Genius, edward might be a hint towards Cole’s alias.
• Cole’s depiction of mainstream rap’s admiration of drug abuse delivered through his slithery rhymes will propel him to his fifth consecutive platinum album.
• Many have penned verses about taking drugs to cope with trauma and depression.

“I knew it wasn’t too clever. I was putting myself in danger,” he stated. This Chicago born and raised rapper is one of the few artists that has not only represented the genre of hip-hop in a positive light, but has been a model of consistency in both his artform and personal life. But as he clarified in a one-on-one interview with Complex in 2013, he was able to make a song about smoking weed because he stepped away from it in 2011. He was tired of being the “Stoner MC” and once he shedded that persona, rapping about it became easier. In other words, he still didn’t smoke, but because he rid himself of the smoker stereotype, he could rap about it more freely. Cole ostracizes rappers who chase money, trends, sex, and drugs.