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Born Sinner - J. Cole: Album Review
RnB/Hip Hop | Tuesday 25th June 2013 | Osh
Following the release of his experimental debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story, Roc Nation’s first signee J. Cole has release his stunning sophomore album Born Sinner. Despite Kanye West’s controversial Yeezus album being released on the same day, Cole refused to let that affect the release date of his album and instead released his album on the same day invited ‘In the Morning’ collaborator Drake to Best Buy to purchase the entire rack of Born Sinner copies.
This album serves as an offering to the hip-hop gods, especially with an ode to Nas on one of the closing tracks ‘Let Nas Down’ referring to the release of his initial single ‘Work Out’ which the Illmatic rapper saw as a detraction from his original style to satisfy radio stations and record labels (which Nas remixed a la Jay-Z on ‘B***h Don’t Kill My Vibe’). Cole uses this album as a response to critics of his career so far as well as to show his original fans that he will not compromise his integrity in order to sell records.
Entirely produced by Cole himself, featuring the likes of Miguel and frequent collaborator Kendrick Lamar (Cole produced Lamar’s ‘HiiiPower’), this release serves as a realisation of the potential that rap fans and critic buzzed about following his Warm Up and Friday Night Lights mixtapes. This marks Cole’s full-length production debut and he’s clearly been listening to the production of legendary hip-hop acts, apparent on tracks such as Forbidden Fruit (utilising the famous sample from A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Electric Relaxation’) as well as ‘LAnd of the Snakes’ (featuring a sample of Outkast’s ‘The Art of Storytelling’).
There are still radio friendly tracks on this album: the Miguel-assisted single ‘Power Trip’ is one of the openers, with an RnB flavour which serves as one of the better tunes as well as ‘Crooked Smile’ featuring TLC. Cole clearly has issues with his newfound wealth, which he addresses on songs such as ‘Mo’ Money’, ‘Chaining Day’ and ‘Rich N****z’, but rather than simply explaining his struggle he lets the listener know that he has relatively little money to those who would ‘laugh at Hov money, billionaires with petroleum and coal money’. It sounds as if Cole has been listening to Kanye West’s debut ‘College Dropout’ despite Cole having stayed in school and completed his college degree. ‘Chaining Day’ addresses African-American materialism in the same way that ‘New Slaves’ and ‘All Falls Down’ did. There are even two track on this with titles that Kanye has used before ‘Trouble and ‘Runaway’.
With this album Cole has managed to satisfy fans and critics alike without sacrificing his artistic freedom. His production has come a long way and it’s obvious that Cole shines best on tracks he has made himself. Devoid of a cheesy single, Born Sinner probably one of the best hip-hop releases of the year so far.
Best tracks: Power Trip, Chaining Day, Forbidden Fruit, Let Nas Down
Rating: Strong 8
Born Sinner is out now and available to buy from iTunes here.
Words by Cory Walker-Eastman @kwamecory
