The album I have chosen to review is 4 Your Eyez Only by J.Cole. This album was released on December 9, 2016. He says what he has to say in his music and is very blunt about it. For example in the song “Neighbors” he says:

I can’t sleep ‘cause I'm paranoid

Black in a white man territory

Cops bust in with the army guns

No evidence of the harm we’ve done

Just a couple neighbors that assume we slang

Only time they see us we be on the news in chains, damn

This caught a lot of people's attention considering he grew up in a not so good neighborhood and everything he said is true. It was something amazing that he had the courage to say this in his music.

He also brings up his past/ childhood into his music which I think is very resilient coming from him to where he is now. He has had a very rough childhood ever since his dad left him and rapping was his only escape from all of his problems. Rapping came very easily, he started rapping when he was 12 but his career didn’t take off until he was 16 and began to send his mixtapes to some of the best-known people like Jay Z and Eminem. He also didn’t really have much growing up, which he mentions a lot in his music.

His Music has always been something to talk about, it has always been and is still talked about. He also went platinum with no features which was a big deal considering he started from scratch and has only been improving since then. Due to this big achievement, many people envy him and his talent. In this particular album, the music is more calming and soothing compared to all his other albums that he released. For example his album Cole World: The Sideline Story is much more upbeat like something you would hear at a rave compared to 4 Your Eyez Only which is more for late night drives in your car. This album, in particular, is known to be similar to Untitled Unmastered. By Kendrick Lamar. Both of these artist are talented in very similar ways. In this album Kendrick Lamar also mentions things he has gone through in the past, for example in the song “ Untitled 06 l 06.30.2014” he mentions his mother.

My personal favorite song in this album is “She's Mine Pt 2” mostly because he mentions things that really caught my attention. In this song he says,

Handcuffs keeps huggin the, the wrists of my nig*as

And I wish stuff was different here

But if I had a magic wand to make the evil disappear that means there would be no Santa Claus no more

To bring Christmas cheer

‘Cause what he represents is really greed

And the need to purchase sh*t from corporations

That make a killin’ because they feed

On the wallets of the poor who be knockin’ on they door

Every Black Friday just to get some sh*t they can’t afford

But as long as we got credit, it don’t matter the amount.

In this song, he has a child crying in the background which was left said that he was going to have a child and he wanted nothing but the best for it. He wants his child to see how cruel and unfair the world really is.

Overall I think this album has more than one meaning within each song and he speaks on everything he has been through on all of his albums. This album to me is something very extraordinary and something that I know took a lot of time for him to come up with, it is truly a work of art. I would give this album an 87 out of 100.