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Originally Posted by louder
False Prophets recycles a Joey Badass beat from 2011 and Deja Vu uses a Bryson Tiller beat from last year. Born Sinner had a couple of recycled beats too: Electric Relexation and The Art of Storytelling (two of hip hop's greatest classics that should be left untouched!!), and Cole didn't do ANY of these beats justice.
All of which make him a glorified blog rapper in my eyes now. He doesn't bring anything new to the table but the general public sees him as "relatable" and "real hip hop" so he's basically another Eminem.
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Fo. Sho.
I get that there's a demand (possibly even a
need) for "Black excellence" music in mainstream culture these days, and that's what Cole purports to bring to the table now that he's dropped the "Baby Kanye" act and adopted a more down-to-earth, man-of-the-people kind of vibe.
But really, there is a TON of Black music out there, and most of it manages to be relevant to social concerns without sacrificing artistic merit. Look at Solange's album... it's sonically beautiful, at once minimal and sprawling, uncompromising an original. Look at Sharon Jones (RIP) and the Dap Kings. Look at D'Angelo, or Anderson .Paak. Even Betoncé is using her money and status to make music that is not only commercially viable and popular culture-defining, but also extremely high in quality, politically charged (a bit), and reverent of Black history and Black womanhood.
That's not even mentioning Kendrick. If Kendrick keeps making the kind of music he's been making, and continues speaking to the issues he's been speaking to, and committing himself to intelligent socio-political discourse, musical dexterity and expanding hip hop's narrative into more poetic and insightful places, he could end up being a Bob Dylan figure for the genre.
Fuck. J.Cole is just cashing in on trends.
Even with regard to straight up, no-nonsense R-A-P, one need look no further than Common's new album for a shining example of why this world doesn't need some jackwad like Cole, going through the motions.
Again, he's not, like, Drake bad. He's not offensive and awful in any way that can match Drake's waste of beats, rhymes, life and memes. I don't hate J.Cole. But he's probably even less capable of making enduring music than King Bitchassness Aubrey Graham himself. Drake is BY FAR the bigger herpes sore in the mouth of hip hop, but at least Drake has a curator's spirit, and occasionally makes a song that becomes part of the zeitgeist.
When I think "J. Cole," the first thing that comes to mind is that Biggie sample. I have two Cole albums, but I can't recite any of his verses. I barely remember the tracks, even the ones that I like. This is NOT how you want to be thought of... you don't want to be a presence that people only recognize in the context of the other people whose shit you ape. I can't believe 400,000 people went out and bought an album by a dude whose over arching career theme is innocuousness.
Fuck it. Whatever. Common's album is great. Should have been that popular.