From Fayetteville to Fame

Jermaine Lamarr Cole, otherwise known by his stage name J. Cole, is considered as one of the most influential rappers of this generation. Upon the release of his third studio album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, he really put himself on the map. Released in 2014, as can be assumed by the title itself, this album is still wildly popular seven years later. 
The album cover features Cole sitting atop a roof with trees and the sky visible in the background. The angle is taken from below, looking up. Cole himself is looking away from the camera as if observing the neighbourhood. The photographer of the album is none other than Anthony Blasko. Although this is the only collaboration between Cole and the photographer, the album cover fits Blasko’s style. His website features photos of meaningful and influential events or people (Blasko). Cole, Blasko, Blasko’s assistant, and Justin Thomaskay spent five days in Cole’s hometown to produce the photos that would eventually accompany the album. According to Thomaskay, the cover was Cole’s idea, he climbed the house and sat on the roof and advised Blasko to take the photo (Thomaskay paragraph 3).
This album’s history and underlying motivation is so meaningful and heartwarming. The house Cole is sitting on in the album cover is none other than his childhood home in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The address of which is 2014 Forest Hills Drive, the album’s name. He lived in the home until 2003 (2014 Forest Hills Drive). 
Among the album’s track list is 03’ Adolescence. Throughout the song, he describes the way he grew up in that home. With lyrics like “tie my shoe up, wish they was newer” alluding to his lower-class upbringing and “I ain’t grow up with my father,” who abandoned Cole as a child, we get a sense of his childhood. Then in another portion of the same song, he explains taking his mother’s keys and heading over to his friend’s house where they hang out and smoke a joint to chill. His friend asks him how he could look up to him when his friend actually looks up to Cole, “you ‘bout to get a degree, Imma be stuck with two choices either graduate to weight or selling number two,” where he references the fact that Cole would soon be attending New York University.
After graduating from College and pursuing his musical career, Cole returned to the house in 2014 and purchased it; this was the first house he bought in his life. The house was foreclosed when Cole was eighteen (Thomaskay para 1). The entire album is an ode to his childhood and his upbringing, recounting it and appreciating it for bringing him where he was. He eventually put up the house for rent at an extremely reduced price in the hopes that someone could use a leg up and focus on things other than the cost of rent. Cole, himself, along with his mother, brother and stepfather moved a lot due to financial struggles. 
Another meaningful song that connects to the album cover would be one of his hits that is known by most youth, Love Yourz. This song highlights what is truly important in life. It focuses on the “beauty in the struggle” by someone who went through it and came out on the other side a famous musician. If I could, I would just copy and paste every lyric to that song into this but that is impractical. To summarize the song as best as I could, life in Hollywood is not all white picket fences and gold watches. Life isn’t a fairy tale. “For what’s money without happiness? Or hard times without the people you love?” He makes the person listening consider the cost of fame. Similarly, in another song (from the album 4 Your Eyez Only) he says “f*** the fame and the fortune, well, maybe not the fortune. But one thing is for sure though, the fame is exhausting.” Cole, no matter what album you listen to, makes it clear that fame is not everything. 
Back to Love Yourz, he says things like “[I] think being broke was better,” but follows it up with, “now I don’t mean that phrase with no disrespect, to all my [guys] out there living in debt, cashing minimal checks … I mean this shit sincerely and that’s a [guy] who was once in your shoes … I hope one day you hear me always gon’ be a bigger house somewhere but … feel me ‘long as the people in that [place] love you dearly.” He explains through these painfully true lyrics that you can’t buy love and loyalty. No matter how big your house is, there will always be a bigger one, no matter how expensive your clothes are, there will always be someone wearing more expensive ones. What is really important, he’s arguing, is finding people that love you. He’s telling the people listening that you will never be happy until you appreciate what you have.
What is my reaction? I think anyone reading what I have written can assume I am a passionate fan of this musician. With regards to music, I tend to lean towards appreciating the lyrics, rather than the melody. Although the beats themselves are incredible, I digress. I think the album cover is perfect for what it represents. A young man that does not really care for the glamorous world that is Hollywood, who sports “dirty sneakers” because “that’s how [he] likes it”(Middle Child). He doesn’t submit his songs for music awards because he doesn’t believe that’s what music is about. This album gives people in a similar situation something to relate to. 
This album is one of those albums that everyone can find themselves in, whether it’s the whole album or one lyric from a song. I think I personally connect to Fire Squad, No Role Modelz, Hello, Apparently, and Love Yourz. One talks about taking chances even if you’re too scared, then not having role models growing up, then thinking about the “what-ifs” with a person and if it’s too late to get back together after years, then about his struggles with his mother, and finally about appreciating what you have in life. I cannot say we had the same upbringing, per se, but I was similarly raised by my single mother and grew up in a tight-knit community. I do connect with it, but once again, so could anyone.