What is J Cole Trying to Teach?

J. Cole is rapper that gained popularity when he released his album Forest Hills Drive in 2014. Ever since this album he has used his platform to release new music that has a common message. The main group of people that listen to his music would be younger people that are into rap music. That does not mean that nobody else can appreciate his music for how poetic and lyrically advanced his songs are. J. Cole has used his fame to really bring to light the message of racism in America. With everything that is going on in the world right now more and more celebrities are taking a stance on the issue and he is one of them. J. Cole really let the theme of racism show through a few notable songs, “Snow on tha Bluff”, “Neighbors”, “Immortal”, and “Change”.

In J. Cole’s first release of 2020, “Snow on tha Bluff”, he discusses a lot of different issues that are affecting the world today like the income gap, police brutality, and most notably systemic racism. J. Cole is one of the most lyrically talented rappers of our time, and even though his lyrics are poetic the real art comes from combining the beat and the lyrics. One verse brings up how the system is basically made to keep black people in poverty and that black people in America have the odds stacked against them:

“She strike me as somebody blessed enough to grow up in

conscious environment

With parents that know ‘bout the struggle for liberation and in turn

they provide her with

A perspective and awareness of the system and unfairness that

afflicts ‘em”

This verse from the song is meant to show listeners that black parents have struggled to get to where they are in life, so they teach their kids about what to expect from being black in America. The rest of the song is riddled with slick lyrics that made me really think about what it would be like to be in their shoes. I highly recommend listening to this song, even if you are not a fan of rap.

Another song by J. Cole that shows the theme of racism is “Neighbors”. This song uses an event that happened to him to show how people automatically assume things about black people without knowing them. The song describes when his neighbors called the police on him because they assumed that he was a drug dealer. He takes this deeper and talks about how black people cannot escape being prejudiced, even if you are highly successful:

“Some things you can’t escape:

Death, taxes, and a ra-

-cist society that make

Every nigga feel like a candidate

For a Trayvon kinda fate

Even when your crib sit on a lake”

This verse of the song shows how even though J. Cole is very successful, and a lot of people know about him, even he is still vulnerable to racism. I really liked how he brought in a current event to make the song hit even closer to home by talking about the Trayvon Martin shooting. The rest of the song gets a little repetitive, but the message of the song is still very relevant today.

“Immortal” by J. Cole is a song that when you hear it for the first time the message might not stand out, but after listening to it a few times I finally understood what he was trying to say. The song talks about how J. Cole feels nowadays black people cannot really make a difference in the world until they are already dead. He talks about how unfortunately people only start paying attention to the racism happening after someone is dead because of it. The song also talks about how black men only have a few options for how to be successful:

“I know nobody meant to live forever anyway

And so I hustle like my niggas in Virgini-A

They tellin’ niggas, “sell dope, rap or go to NBA”

In that order, it’s that sort of thinkin’

That been keepin’ niggas chained at the bottom hanged

The strangest fruit that you ever seen, ripe with pain, listen…”

This verse from the song describes to the listener how black people are only given a few options to be successful in life. I also really like how he included the last bit from “Strange Fruit”, by Billy Holiday that protests the lynching of black people. By including this in the song J. Cole further demonstrates the common theme of racism, but in a subtle way that makes the listener diver deeper to get full understanding.

A lot of songs by J. Cole do not directly discuss racism, for example in his song “Change”, he mostly talks about how racism will not change in America until all black people can come together and stop fighting among themselves. He talks about how most of the attacks on black people, are by other black people so the only way to move forward is to change from the inside. At the end of the song J. Cole ties it all together after talking about another shooting that took place:

“We know he’s in a better place

But this has got to end, ladies and gentleman

We’ve got to come together, this is-this is beyond words

Now I’d like to open this ceremony with a verse from-“

This is at the very end of the song right after he gets done describing a shooting that happened, just from reading the lyrics we can see that he wants black people to come together so they can end racism. Listening to these songs will give anyone better understanding of how poetic J. Cole’s music actually is, and reading the lyrics does not do the songs justice.