J Cole will never be considered a great, because he embodies the stereotypical "great rapper

[StoneColdMikey]

name a rapper who has changed the game who was humble? I'll wait

CD era Kanye was relatively humble.

LFMAO

 

[StoneColdMikey]

cOLE does have a gimmick.. well he did. college kid, bball references shit

 

[High Revolutionary]

I'm standing on CD era Kanye being humble. He may have secretly been cocky and had cocky bars/tracks but during his CD days he at least kept up an appearance of being humble which was the original point of the argument. Shit he was the original J.Cole.

I remember even reading a quote from him way back when around when LR dropped about how he was no longer going to be humble and he was going to start flexing a bit.

 

[#1hiphopjunki3]

I commend J.Cole's subject matter and the fact that he is true to who he really is. My problem with his music is the damn production. His shit sounds hella dated, like he is afraid to experiment with different types of sounds and styles.

I'm glad he isn't doing fucking EDM or super Poppy type shit but at least try to go a little bit outta the box.

 

[Swiffness!]

I'm usually skeptical of sweeping analysis like this but I think he made a great point, especially with the Photorealism analogy. Cole to me is a DOPE, incredibly talented MC but I can't bring myself to really feel more than 2 tracks per album. He does pretty everything I'd want a big rapper to do but he bores me for some reason that I could never really put my finger on until now. I thought it was just the beats but it's more than that....

I'm a Cole fan as many know. I've said and continue to say J COLE IS TOO HUMBLE, dude has no edge to him. He seems like he is just happy to make it. He is so content with being the underdog, nigga you've sold two gold albums and platinum hits, talk your shit.

You got niggas who ain't do half of what he did (Big Sean. Meek,etc) who act like they're Eminem is success. lol

Cole seems like one of those rappers who is just content to have a fanbase who consistently buy his shit. I don't know if he will ever break out his little niche.

name a rapper who has changed the game who was humble? I'll wait

Co-sign, humility is a terrible trait for a rapper to have. The genre is hardwired to reward shit talking and arrogance. Even the introspective and conscious artists understand this. Even scathing self-deprecation in rap leans towards a sort of "I'm fucked up n taking Ls, but I'm real enough to realize this and I'll survive" pride, like Em's final 8 Mile battle verse or Sean Price bragging about being "the brokest rapper". Ya'll mentioned Early Kanye and that's a good example:

But I ain't even gonna act holier than thou

Cause fuck it, I went to Jacob with twenty-five thou



He was rapping about the futility and emptiness of materialist consumption, but still framed it in a "don't get it twisted i'm BALLIN NIGGA!!!" sort of way. Etc.

Maybe beefing with someone will wake Cole up lol. I wanna see this nigga angry lol.

 

[Lustchyld]

I think a good analogy is photorealism in art. Essentially, photorealism is a drawing/painting that looks almost indistinguishable from a photograph. Many novice art students find photorealism to be the best type of art. "Of course it's amazing to be able to use a pencil to make a real-looking picture!" But nah. It's boring and expected. It's 100% technical skill, 0% innovation. Even when it looks amazing, it's completely expected. That's why the art world largely doesn't care about it. An abstract Van Gogh, or the schizophrenic doodlings of Basquiat are FARRRRRR more exciting and thought provoking than a really super realistic drawing of some portrait. No photorealist picture is exciting or new or special, no matter how much talent it took. And that is Cole: Huge amounts of talent, but the finished product is unsurprising and mundane. Do we know that he's going to rap about an abortion or how his crooked teeth don't bother him anymore? No, but we knew something like that was coming.

Great artists are artists that would not be the typical response when asking fans to describe create an ideal artist. We never asked for an egotistical rapper with a passion for high fashion, art, religious imagery, and gender-bending production, Kanye invented that. We never asked for a racoon-faced rapper with a weird nasally voice who pronounces dick as "dih" and writes strange, synthy choruses, but we got Kendrick. We never asked for a vulgar white psychopath who raps about raping his mom and mocks celebs over funky circus-inspired Dre beats, but we got Eminem.

The fallacies in the writer's logic/argument are all over these 2 paragraphs but like the ol' saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". People have to crawl before they can walk. It's why they don't teach trigonometry to 1st graders. How you gone expect any artist to cater to the tastes of cult connoisseurs in experimental phases? The writer is CLEARLY reaching with his assessment.

 

[jazzybella]

To me the perfect example of Cole being "cocky" is when he did his first Breakfast Club interview where he freestyle at the end. Charlemagne started to say something and Cole put his hand up and kept rapping lol Also, on Wale's last breakfast club interview he said how much of an "asshole" Cole really is behind the scenes. As a fan since The Warm Up mixtape in 09' I think he embodies both characteristics, its just the media embraces more of his humbled side

 

[Ear2DaSt]

Cole style aint tight.

 

[loch121]

But..... but J Cole is selling more than basically all those heavy image rappers in his age/career peer group

I'm not talking about Drake or K Dot(There both kinda in the same lane as Cole). Drake is a little more image based because of his backstory and the RnB.

I mean Waka,Soulja, Big Sean(who is dope),Odd Future, etc etc

the game has been so oversaturated with huge characters it needed just a dude who rapped good

It's like a nigga wants hate for any reason.

Now niggas is too hip hop and too relatable and too much of what underground fans were asking for?

Hip hop fans ain't shit. Cole is dope

 

[BackInWhite]

He ain't got no personality

Just a nigga that can rap

 

[idoitforhiphop10]

He ain't got no personality

Just a nigga that can rap

This is pretty much what dude was sayin, but in like 6 paragraphs.

This is a general question for any poster: What does having personality in hip hop consist of to you?

 

[NothingButTheTruth]

Cole won't be considered a great because he's not great. He is an average rapper who's in his moment right now. Stop acting like every new rapper deserves to be in the HOF.

 

[nj2089]

I remember they said the same thing about fab not having a personality

 

[BackInWhite]

Cole just ain't got no mic presence

He just be there

I remember the 1st verse I heard from him was in bp3

"Flow cold as the shoulder of gold digging how's when a broke nigga approaches"

I thought that nigga was the future

Then he came with that "I got that flame" nonsense and he was all lackluster and weird eye movements from then out

He just a nigga that puts words together nicely

Like if Todd from accounting got a thesaurus and started rapping

 

[real_hh_rep]

This article is full of shit. We shouldn't expect rappers to be this or that. Cole doesn't pretend someone else , he has style and flow easily recognized, his albums are solid. Who the fuck cares that he doesn't have classic under his belt? He hasn't sold out nor lost his artistic integrity like Kanye, so respect him for that,

 

[krow132]

I think people tend to confuse traditional with boring. I never understood the boring knock on J. Cole. When I listen to a cole project, Im entertained (he is wildly inconsistent). He varies on topics and he usually covers them in an entertaining way. His delivery is too traditional, thats why people find him boring. There are a million rappers before him that has his style

 

[usmarin3]

I don't think it's his delivery or his skillset per se. I think what turns people off or make them consider him boring is two things;

1. His voice is very monotone

2. His choice is production

He has a problem where he produce beats that tend to blend or match the monotonous style of his voice. Monotone beat and monotone voice is a no no (see Nas and Salaam Remi). It's why J Cole sound so much better on other people beats (Kanye, Just Blaze, etc).

If he wants to go the traditionalist sound he needs to rhyme on boom bap beats like this, something with that head nod factor. His beats too mellow!

 

[loch121]

The irony of this is he sales units and has big records so is any of that shit stopping him?

He pushes units in an era where records don't sale

And if you want to say fuck sales,skill wise he's a dope MC.He has great wordplay,flow,and substance

Most of the time that huge personality to make up for a lack of skill

 

[jvlioo]

"Cole under pressure. What that make? Diamonds."