Meaning behind “Middle Child”

J. Cole is no stranger to the rap game, he has been dropping hits longer than most rappers and he isn't stopping. Jermaine Lamarr Cole is a 34-year-old American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Cole was born on a military base in Germany, however, he was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Cole initially obtained recognition and credit as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, which was released in early 2007. In his early life, J. Cole was musically inspired by Nas, Canibus, Tupac, and Eminem, which all of these rappers being musically talented. Persuaded and inspired by their talent, Cole started to work on developing his basic understanding of rhyming and wordplay, as well as starting to learn how to incorporate storytelling within their lyrics, which is prevalent in most of his songs. After deciding that music is the path he wants to be on and graduating high school with a 4.2 GPA, J.Cole decided that his chances of success and getting a recording contract would be greater in New York City. Cole later moved to New York City and accepted a scholarship to St. John's University, while at college, he initially majored in computer science, Cole later switched to communication and business. Because of his inspiration in music at a young age, J.Cole would later become one of the world’s most popular rappers, he would go on to releasing multiple mixtapes and albums, including, “2014 Forest Hills Drive,” “4 your eyez only,” “KOD,” and others.

After the incredible success of his album KOD in 2018, which amongst other things, stands for “Kids On Drugs,”  J Cole had released his first song of 2019 on January 23, and it’s already taking the internet by storm, unlike most rap songs, J.Cole uses the lyrics to show his perspective on many sensitive topics. Middle Child reflects Cole’s perspective on diss tracks, his preference for supporting his peers in the industry, and his own perspective on drugs. J.Cole himself stated in an interview with Spin, “We live in a society where all this drug use is normalized, it’s the norm, it’s okay, it’s f***ing encouraged, it’s f***ing promoted.” (Cole) In his new song Middle Child, Cole speaks out on drugs in his lyrics, “I do not snort powder, I might take a sip, I might hit the blunt, but I'm liable to trip, I ain’t poppin' no pill, but you do as you wish,” in these verses, he references different drugs and gives his opinion on them. He references himself many times in his song, stating how he is different from most rappers today, he doesn't leave people behind, and he isn't focused on gaining popularity or fame. Prior to releasing this hit, he deleted all of his social media posts, also 30 minutes before releasing the song, he posted prominent figures who were all middle child’s, hinting towards the name of his song.

Additionally, on February 25th, 2019, Cole released the music video to Middle Child, presently it has over 18 million views with 800k likes. What sets this project apart from his other music videos, is how the visuals complement the overall message of the lyrics. Throughout most of the video, Cole is in the middle of the screen, while everything happens around him, highlighting the experiences of a middle child. The opening scene shows Cole in the middle of the screen with a silhouetted crowd behind him, when the beat drops, affluent figures on the red carpet celebrate but don’t show any attention to Cole. When the lights fade and the scene changes, the affluent figures seem to be dead, with red dirt on their soles, symbolizing a popular high-end Louboutin shoe brand, but the red dirt instead of the red soles symbolizes how ingenuine people are, the reason behind this is because when it comes to award shows, J.Cole has been constantly snubbed, he has been up for a music-related award 43 times since 2012, and has only won 6 of them, for the Grammys specifically, he has been nominated 7 times, and hasn’t won once. In the next scene Cole is driving around in the familiar backwoods with a Bentley, a luxurious and expensive car, however, he seems bothered by the car covered in red mud. After, it transitions to J.Cole’s hunting lounge, it depicts 3 plaques on the wall, all showing human heads on it, reminiscent of a hunting trophy. The plaques under the heads read, “Your favorite rapper,” “This could be you,” and “Ask for a feature,” the middle plaque which shows, “This could be you,” is generic and vague but can symbolize the rap gang in general at the moment, the head portrayed on it has colorful hair, which calls out many new age rappers. Cole announced in Middle Child that he is over any personal beef. The lyrics overtly reveal the meaning behind the title, Cole feels as if he rests between two ages of rap, new age rap, and old age rap, and is ok with acting like a bridge in between them. Cole acknowledges that he learned a lot from the legends before, and he’s willing to teach new generations of future rappers. The theme that sticks out in the video is what it means to be real and a phony. Through J. Cole’s lyrics and his visual interpretations, you can determine a certain message layered in between references and metaphors, proving, he truly is one of the best in the game right now.