“For what’s money without happiness? Or hard times without the people we love?” One of the many lyrics that leave you thinking. The album has so much diversity and shows us a lot of his life growing up, the pains of being poor, the ambition to make it, his first time, the difference between his home town and being in a city where he knew he was going to become something more. Some of the songs you see the confidence he has in himself and how he beats all the odds to end up on top without fail. This album shows what other albums can’t. J.cole was on a mission and he successfully accomplished it, but even still wasn’t award with a golden globe even though he released a solo album without any features and was still under par in the eyes of the world. This album peaked the billboard 200 at no.1 initially selling 354,000 copies.

This album is one of the best if not the best representation of being poor and living under harsh and bad environments, but still make a way and beat all of the odds. Personally J.cole is already one of my favorites if not my favorite artist of all time! But to add to the already long list of reasons he is my favorite artist just another thing that makes him even better to me is this accomplishment he was able to bring home to his city of Fayetteville. With this album he holds now 2 out of six spots to ever gone platinum under the record label known as Roc-Nation. The other four spots are held by the founder Jay-Z. A personal note, He is one of the people who actually inspired me to become an artist, and at the same time gave me a sense if understanding of what type of music is truly moving. J.cole puts many things into perspective on this album alone sharing much of his life and childhood experiences growing up. There are also a lot of his opinion on what the hip-hop industry has become over the years.
Some of the lyrics actually show you what people are more in tune to and what they care more about. And through his song fire squad you see that even with putting out an album with no features and being nominated for a Grammy that that he still gets beat out by a female artist that thrives through the hype and well composed hooks and beats. But even though this album beat him out for best rap album of the year he still sold so many more albums than she sold. There are so many things that can be talked about due to the fact that his music is constantly rising over another artist making such massive name for himself. He was signed to Roc-Nation in 2007 but wasn’t actually introduced to the industry until 2008 on the founder of the record label album which was the spark of his career. The albums he releases are albums you can listen to start to finish without stopping, but even still this album was under appreciated by so many!
This is a concept record about a boy finding out his purpose in life but it is written from the perspective of an older and now successful version of himself explaining the facets of fame and superstardom. But at the same time showing how importance of love even with fame.