This Is My Rifle: Hey Roc Nation, Stop Shoving J. Cole Into the Mainstream

As I've been recording my next album I've come to realize a few things about myself. First, there is nothing I love more than standing inside a soundproof booth and weaving my thoughts between a tightly wound drum pattern. There's no other feeling like the one I get as the music builds behind me and I drop between a kick and snare and become part of a musical piece. In the past, the studio was my least favorite place to be and I would drag myself there out of an obsessive need to create. But this time around I've decided to make this album about raw emotion, rather than perfecting minor technicalities, and I'm loving the world that's taking shape around me.

On my previous efforts I put a lot of energy into making sure that everything was technically perfect and I think in some instances the music suffered because of it. It was hard for me to understand that perfection had less to do with arrangement and everything to do with properly directing an emotion and now finally I've thrown caution to the wind and I'm making the music I've always envisioned, almost effortlessly. It's kind if like winning an artistic Super Bowl except I'm in a dimly lit studio and millions of people aren't watching. Ok, it's nothing like the Super Bowl at all. It's more like walking around with a massive boner all day then going home to a blowjob, a steak and a cold beer. Yeah, that's pretty much bang on.

The second realization I've had is that I like to kick ass. A lot (well, maybe it's not so much a realization but more of a re-affirmation). If you've been following my column then you know that I'm not much of a fan of the recent goings on in Hip Hop (newbies click here, here and here). For a while I couldn't figure out what it was. It wasn't the onslaught of ignorant bullshit, I still consider myself a No Limit Soldier (I thought I told ya) and it doesn't get much more non-sensical than Master P. It wasn't the ridiculous hipster trend, although I would gladly take a chainsaw to any and all hipsters the world over. As much as I hate them and their whole empathetic, "I'm too cool to care about anything ever except for shit so bad it's ironic to like it" thing, they are a trend and trends are destined to die (slowly, I hope). It wasn't even the god awful mainstream, bastardized version of Hip Hop that dominates top 40 radio. No, it wasn't any of that at all. For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to give the slightest fuck about Hip Hop and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't figure out why.

Then one night, after constant harassment from random people on Facebook and Twitter, I downloaded J. Cole's "The Warm-Up" mixtape. At first I was hesitant to give it a listen because I was under the assumption that he, like 99.9% of the new rappers currently emerging onto the scene, was just another rapper doomed to a brief flare up and then left to forever wander the wasteland of forgotten blog posts. But that night, while at the gym and looking through my iPod for something that I haven't had the chance to listen to yet, I came across his mixtape, pushed play and had my faith in Hip Hop reinstated.

It took me up until the ending of the first verse on "Grown Simba" to say "fuck the gym" and pay more attention to what J. Cole had to say. I then spent the next 2 hours sitting on Hollywood Blvd flicking back and forth between songs, a giant smile growing on my face with every verse that erupted through my headphones. That night I didn't become a fan of J. Cole, although I think he makes great music, I found a new artist to box with.

Have you ever been challenged to a fight and then after the first few punches are thrown the other guy just sits there while you beat the life out of him? And so you just keep dancing around him throwing jabs and begging him to get up because you feel like you're picking on a retarded kid in a wheel chair? That's how I feel as an MC most of the time. It's not that I consider myself a God of any type (demigod perhaps?); I just know that I'm a better lyricist than a lot of these guys. To put things in perspective, you've probably never (seriously) rapped in your life but put a pen to a piece of paper, write some words that rhyme and congratulations, you too are a better rapper than the majority of the dickheads currently being posted on your favorite blogs and websites (with the exception of refined hype of course). Now imagine, as a fiercely competitive person, how it feels to even be somewhat compared or considered to be a peer to these idiots. It will literally drive you to the brink of some Columbine-style craziness.

So listening J. Cole was much more than just discovering a great new artist, it was my first encounter with somebody I couldn't wait to go toe to toe with. Until that moment the only artist I had to spar with was Shane Eli and we had been competing for so long that we knew each other's tricks. Every new song one passed to the other was a slightly stronger right hook, but we knew how to counter those strikes and temporarily floor the other guy. It got to the point where we were just standing in the middle of the ring, winded and staring at each other like "what else you got?” Now we both had a reason to head back into the studio and get back to training. J. Cole was a powerful opponent and if either of us were going to compete we had a lot of work to do.

There's no doubt in my mind that every single person reading this thought the exact same thing when they heard the first 3 single's from Cole's debut album "Cole World: The Sideline Story". You could almost hear the collective "what the fuck" ripple through the Internet simultaneously. But let me ask you this, what else did you expect? J. Cole isn't just everybody's favorite underrated MC anymore and he has some high expectations to live up to. He is the flagship artist on the biggest rapper alive's first attempt at owning and operating his own major label (remember Dame and Biggs? Yeah, they had a little more to do with Roc-A-Fella than just wearing cool chains). What Cole is experiencing right now is called "pressure to perform" and by the looks of things the powers that be have demanded a bit of a shift in creative direction. The unfortunate part about this is that Cole is dangerously close to alienating his core fan base while failing to connect with another.

The problem with the way that Cole is being marketed is exactly what Nathan said in his "J. Cole vs. the mainstream debate"; he's just not mainstream material. Cole is an artist that makes music about real life issues and has a message to send to the people. By trying to dumb him down and force him into the tired old Hip Hop clichés, Roc Nation is setting him up for failure. Jay-Z can lend a hand to as many of Cole's songs as possible but if J. Cole finds success in the mainstream it's because they came to him, not the other way around. It's not that he doesn't deserve all the success and accolades the world has to offer, it's just that unfortunately the world has to catch up to him in order for that to happen.

What artists like myself, Shane Eli, J. Cole, Big KRIT, Voli (whose mixtape is fucking incredible by the way. If you haven't heard it, click here) and others represent is a rising of the tide, a changing of the guard. The fact that so many ears are open to "Cole World" is a definitive sign that heart and soul are making their way back into Hip Hop music. The empty, emotionless garbage that has been so prevalent this past decade is dying and intelligence is once again the primary requirement in being considered a true artist. If you ask me, that's the real pressure J. Cole is under. He has the job of carrying all of us on his shoulders and bringing some light to the MC's waiting to tell their stories.

Now let's just hope Roc Nation doesn't fuck it up.

See Also: J. Cole’s “Cole World” Album Review: Director’s Cut

(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can listen/download his most recent album, "Marvelous World Of Color", here and you can contact him here and here.)