J. Cole 4 Your Eyez Only
Released: December 9th, 2016
Must Listen: “Neighbors“
We barely heard from J.Cole all year, until he announced his new album 4 Your Eyez Only, which dropped exactly a week after announced. J.Cole wrestles with a lot of different things such as racism, death, becoming a father and a host of other things.
After listening to the album it can be concluded that J.Cole is easily one of the most honest rappers in the game today. His bars are top notch as usual, even if the subject matter isn’t exactly what we’re used to hearing from him. He dug super deep into his life to give us a narrative of what’s going on with all his struggles as a rapper, a black man in America and someone who’s soon to be a father. (His daughter was born soon after the album released.)
Tracks like “Immortal” and “Ville Mentality” show J.Cole giving us some great bars over relaxed beats. Through the first five songs you can tell this album was a therapeutic thing for Cole, because it’s all based around him and what’s going on in his life. The albums best song is probably “Neighbors,” which is about some neighbors who thought he was possibly selling dope out his house, where he actually just chose to record. There was an entire sting operation complete with helicopters and masked police officers, which of course ended in nothing at all being found but studio equipment. That’s the highest point of the album, and from there he goes into a tale of loving a woman, being scared of being a father and shortly after the album closes with an amazing outro. The outro is most likely directed at the daughter of his slain friend, and J. Cole gets personal as ever before rapping to us about why the albums title is 4 Your Eyez Only.
It’s 10 tracks, with no features just like its predecessor. He enlists his same array of producers as well. Only 10 songs long, it’s a short album but Cole gets his point across well. It maybe a little personal, but that’s fine because we love Cole for that reason right there, he’s honest.