J. Cole has to be one of the most interesting hip-hop artists in today’s era. While having a really passionate fan base, he also has people who just hate his music. People refer to his music as “boring” and say it has little to no replay value. For example, most critics say “4 Your Eyes Only” had subpar production and lyrics.
However, on April 16, 2018, J. Cole tweeted that he was releasing his new album: "KOD", which means King Overdose, Kids on Drugs and Kill Our Demons.
Did J Cole deliver on this album? The answer is absolutely. J. Cole has written an album that any adult or young college student can relate to.
The album begins with a beautiful jazz melody for a solid one minute and 40 seconds. Then, all of a sudden, a woman’s voice pops-up to say the name of the album: "KOD."
J. Cole then comes in with the title song “KOD,” which feature something very different: a dumbing down of his flow that can catch listeners off guard. J. Cole is known for having a slow, boring and preachy type of flow. This time, he’s decided to have energy in his flow.
“KOD” touches on two topics: his competition and his drug use at a young age. J. Cole says, “How come you won’t get a few features how bout I don’t” and “N***** ain’t worthy to be on my shit.” He’s basically silencing critics on who he should have featured on his album and dissing anybody who thinks that they are worthy enough to be on this album.
J. Cole goes into his drug addictions in the next verse, saying that “My homie got the pharmaceutical plug / I smoke the drug and it runs through my vein / I think it’s working; it’s numbing the pain.” In this snippet, he reminisces about how his friend gave him drugs, so J. Cole was able to cope with the pain that he was going through.
"KOD" is one of his many bangers and it was a good way to start off the album. Another banger on this album is “ATM,” which displays a different style for J. Cole. In this song, he switches to a fast mumble rap flow that really sounds good over the beat of the track. The title, “ATM,” means Addicted to Money, as well as the ATM machine.
In the song, J. Cole contemplates his current state of fame and what it means for him and his community. This creates a braggadocious song with some lyrical substance and a deep meaning. In this song he says that “A million dollars, I count up in intervals / Without it I’m miserable” and “My rollie is scorching.” It was good seeing J. Cole finally have a song with some good energy and dope lyrics.
“Brackets” strays away from the album’s themes, talking about something we all love: taxes. With this topic, he also mentions how underprivileged communities of color are ignored by leaders. This track is an average Cole track with inspirational bars and really subdue beat that sounds smooth.
On this track, Cole mentions “Yeah, I pay taxes, so much taxes, shit don’t make sense / Where do my dollars go? You see lately, I ain’t been convinced.” This goes into how Cole isn’t pleased with how tax money is being used. He thinks that is should go towards more important things like building up the city.
“Brackets” really impresses with how Cole touches on these hard topics to show that he’s dealing with same things that average people are dealing with.
“1985” is the last song on this album and it definitely does not disappoint. On this song, he talks about the current state of hip-hop and how he is becoming “old in the game.” “I hear your music and I know that rap’s changed / A bunch of folks would say that’s a bad thing.”
This lyric is directed to all the so-called “mumble rappers,” basically talking about the old opinion of hip-hop. This song is really great, as it has a dope beat and some objective opinions on how hip-hop is being shaping.
Overall this album did not disappoint. It's an improvement over “4 Your Eyes Only” and the production is good. However, this album did need some singing features, because his voice is not the best; the Kill Edward thing, which is basically J. Cole with a deep voice, is trash. 4/5
Courtesy of Genius.com
