music by j cole neighbors think i am selling dope

I be discreet and pull out ya phone and put my number it.” In J. “What you in the club lookin’ like you out ya zone. “Déjà Vu,” which samples a beat from Bryson Tiller’s “Exchange,” feels almost musically identical to “Immortal,” despite Cole’s focus remaining squarely on a beautiful woman in the club. Because you wanna change the world-but while alive, you never will.”

“I see the rain pouring down before my very eyes…should come as no surprise,” he croons on the album opener “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” It’s a drearily evocative track, with distorted horns punctuating Cole’s raspy vocals throughout, as he sings “ain’t nowhere to hide” and “tired of feeling low, even when I’m high.” It segues into the percussive “Immortal,” where Cole ponders the validity of how “real niggas don’t die,” reflecting on the machismo of young Black men trapped in the struggle as a parallel to being an ambitious rapper: “To die a young legend or live a long life unfulfilled.

Cole didn’t need the shock value of “False Prophets,” but he did need something of a shakeup to provide a jolt of energy to what is a mostly melancholy affair. But it also reveals that there isn’t anything quite as incendiary here. This is a highly personal album, and that track would’ve overshadowed the reflective tone present throughout much of it. “False Prophets” may have sent social media into a frenzy, but Cole was wise to leave the track off of 4 Your Eyez Only. Exactly two years later, he returns with 4 Your Eyez Only, a stone-faced look at life and love through the eyes of a man who has a family-on top of all that angst he’s been carrying since the very beginning.Ĥ Your Eyez Only was preceded by two singles: the somber “Everybody Dies” and the controversy-baiting “False Prophets,” a pointed message track that included a verse that sounded like a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at embattled superstar Kanye West. 2014 Forest Hill Drive seemed to announce Cole as a major force in the rap game, a critically acclaimed project that made good on the promise of his earlier work.

The thoughtful rhymer from North Carolina showcased a sincerity that even at it’s most awkward (“Let Nas Down”) was endearing to fans in a way that separated him from his contemporaries.

Cole has presented himself as hip-hop’s pensive everyman.

Music by j cole neighbors think i am selling dope