For many Irish fans, the first time J Cole would have come to Irish fans attention was 2009, when he appeared on the seminal “A Star is Born” track off Jay Z’s “The Blueprint 3” album. RapIreland.com has decided to take a look at the Rapper/Producer’s career to date, from his early years of leaving his home town to move to New York, to being the first signing of Jay Z’s Roc Nation, and most recently joining Drake on European tour.
Jermaine Lamarr Cole, better known as J Cole, was born in Frankfurt Germany but moved to North Carolina in the US with his mother when he was just a baby. As a young boy his love for rap music very quickly turned into a passion. Cole began rapping at age 12 when his cousin showed him the basics styles of rhyming. Inspired by Hip-Hop legends Nas, Tupac and Eminem, he developed a love for telling stories in his lyrics. By the age of 15, J Cole was making his own beats on a beat machine that his mother had bought for him. This meant he could convert the notebooks filled with rhymes into music. Having turned 18, Cole decided that he wanted to make his dream of becoming a successful rapper a reality, convincing his mother to let him move to New York, under the agreement that he would attend St. John’s University. However, Cole’s focus wasn’t on earning a college degree, but on landing a record deal. In a recent interview Cole explains:
“I thought at the time that New York was the place I needed to be to get signed,” he says. “So I applied for colleges there. I knew that I was going to New York to get a record deal, but I didn’t really know how I was going to do it. I had I plan… but I didn’t have a plan (laughs).”
In 2007, after graduating college, Cole released his debut mixtape “The Come Up”, filled with everything from the carefree days of college to the seemingly endless plight of scrapping for change to get by in his day to day life. The mixtape was passed onto manager Mark Pitts who ended up meeting with Cole. J recalls:
“Nobody was answering and I couldn’t really get my foot in the door, but I ended up meeting [manager] Mark Pitts through some people… it’s a long story,” Cole says. “But I met Mark Pitts, who managed Biggie and he had signed Chris Brown and Ciara and all these people. He was like the first person in the industry to really get my music right away. He’s the one who eventually ended up playing it for Jay-Z and that’s how my deal with Roc Nation eventually happened.”
In 2009 the rapper became the first artist to sign to Roc Nation, an entertainment company created by Jay Z and Live Nation. On June 15th 2009 he released his highly anticipated second mixtape “The Warm Up”. Cole produced 17 tracks out of the 22 and even tried his hand at a freestyle over Jay Z’s 1996 classic “Dead Presidents”. Later that year the Roc Nation’s new recruit was featured on Jay Z’s final installment of the Blueprint trilogy on the track “A Star Is Born” produced by Kanye West, which went out on the Blueprint 3 tour in the US.
Last April in America he released “Who Dat”, the first single from his long awaited debut album. Cole spoke on the reasons he chose “Who Dat”:
“because it’s really about the beat and the raps and not much more. It’s an introduction to those that were unfamiliar and also something for my fans to brag about as opposed to hearing it on the radio and being like ‘Ehhh”
The debut single peaked at 19 in the US rap charts and left fans waiting for more new music from the North Carolina native.
“Friday Night Lights” is the third and most recent mixtape for the rapper, which the naturalised New Yorker gave his fans for free. The mixtape was released on the 12th of November and became the second most searched and trending topic on Google and Twitter following its release. Once again critics gave the rapper praise, even getting a rare classic rating 10/10 from AllHipHop.com. And yet again the mixtape was mostly produced by Cole doing 13 out of the 20 tracks.
After seeing the success of “Friday Night Lights”, it was confirmed that J Cole and Young Money rapper Drake would join forces for a European tour . Last month the tour kicked off in Glasgow and the pair went onto sellout four more nights in the UK with dates in Germany, Holland, France and Belgium also. This month saw the release of a video from the duo for their song “In The Morning”, which was shot in Paris, France.
The debut album from the J Cole is due out sometime next month, when hopefully Irish fans will get to see the “Who Dat” rapper live in action.
J Cole Freestyle on Tim Westwood
