Average Rating: 9.2/10
Overall Rating:9.7/10
1. Intro
2. Dollar and a Dream III (7.5/10)
3. Can’t Get Enough Ft. Trey Songz (10/10)
4. Lights Please (6.5/10)
5. Interlude
6. Sideline Story (10/10)
7. Mr. Nice Watch Ft. Jay-Z (10/10)
8. Cole World (10/10)
9. In The Morning Ft. Drake (5.5/10)
10. Lost Ones (10/10)
11. Nobody’s Perfect Ft. Missy Eliot (7.5/10)
12. Never Told (10/10)
13. Rise and Shine (10/10)
14. God’s Gift (10/10)
15. Breakdown (9.5/10)
16. Work Out (10/10)
17. Nothing Lasts Forever (10/10)
18. Daddy’s Little Girl (10/10)
19. Who Dat (9/10)
For the last two years a wave of new artists who are expected to lead the next generation of hip-hop came out with their debut albums. B.o.B had his debut The Adventures of Bobby Ray and in my opinion it passed with flying colors, Drake had a fair debut with his Thank Me Later album, Tinie Tempah had Disc-Overy as an excellent debut, Tyler The Creator made it with this year’s Goblin, Big Sean got his big break after four years making mixtapes with his Finally Famous album, and now, J. Cole has a shot at continuing the ladder of great new generation rappers with his debut album “Cole World: The Sideline Story”.
It’s been seven years since J. Cole started working on his music. Since 2005 he’s been recording songs, making mixtapes, getting himself ready for this one moment, his big break. The album “Cole World: The Sideline Story”, so does he need to pull this off? Yes, it’s very important that he makes a great first impression to a much bigger crowd, not just Rock-A-Fella fans or huge fans of people affiliated with Jay-Z or whatever, me, as for one, I heard his mixtapes, he makes great music, but some artists tend to choke in their debut, is Cole one of them?
Cole had all of of his skills all on display on this album. He produced almost every track here, he showed off some of his depth lyrically, he showed us some of his story telling skills, and sometimes just showing his rhyming skills in general, and honestly I think that’s what made this album differ from other debut albums, a lot of artists try switching up their skills or try expanding too fast with a lot of other styles or try working with other artists too fast, but Cole went on the right track here in my opinion. Cole wanted to show his fans and new listeners what he could really do in and out of the recording booth, and that’s what he exactly showed in his debut “Cole World: The Sideline Story”.
Cole World: The Sideline Story mainly featured two sides of Cole’s music. One side was made of tracks that was just Cole having fun with his rhymes and skill, which was basically just Cole talking about the usual fun stuff and really nothing emotional or personal, the second side had the more serious songs on the album, the tracks on the second side dealt with the fact that J. Cole wants to change the world, his personal feelings and stories involving family relationships, relationships with girls and s lot more. Cole World: The Sideline Story brought exactly what its name delivered concept wise, Cole World sounded a lot like the world we live in, people have fun, people have feelings, and there are issues in the world, and families and couples have problems, that was exactly what this album was about, but the difference between this album and other stuff that talk about those topics is that it was more on Cole’s point of view than anything else, which was something I honestly loved.
To start off looking at the music of the album, I decided to go with the funner side, mainly because it’s shorter and a lot less deep than the rest of the album, but what’s depth when the song is great? I mean look at what the album has, the energetic, lyrical “Can’t Get Enough” was an excellent track that will surly get radio play, the club based “Work Out” had a great club-themed tune with a great flow to go with it, “Mr. Nice Watch” was one of my favorites, it was a like lyrical game, J. Cole and Jay-Z both rapped fire on top a dubstep inspired beat, it’s punchlines shined, it’s production shined, it was just an all-around strongly structured song, “Lights Please” was about forgetting about all the problems in the world and just doing it, it was a great song, but I have to admit Cole’s flow on the song felt a bit lazy, and “In The Morning” which featured Drake, it was a good track, except it had a really lazy and boring flow, which is something that works sometimes, but doesn’t work at all most of the time.
As for the serious topics, Cole talked about a lot of stuff. He started the serious tracks on the album talking about his rise to fame and how he got to the position that he is on now. There were a lot of those great tracks, “Cole World” was among my favorites, J. Cole had some really strong lyrics, the beat was really fast, and honestly it just in a way stands for everything Cole did, and what he wants to do, “Dollar and a Dream III” was a great track, it was about rising to the point of making money out of his dream, it was deep, the production was great, but Cole’s flow was just a bit lazy though, “Rise and Shine” which was about Cole’s rise and fall, it was truly one of the best tracks on the album thanks to its more than outstanding production and aggressive flow, and “Who Dat” which was about spreading his name and reaching where he is now, it was a great track, but for some reason it felt a bit overplayed due to it coming out over a year ago.
Cole also talked about some serious problems involving couples too. “Lost One” was basically a story about a couple debating whether they should abort a baby or not, Cole brought both, the guy’s point of view, and the girl’s point of view, and the result? An emotional, innovative and a really great story, “Nobody’s Perfect” was about how couples make mistakes, and that a relationship isn’t perfect, it starts off as a really lazy track, but it does get better as progresses, “Never Told” was about how a man tries taking to a girl when a problem is going on, and how she keeps denying it, it was a slow, but excellent track, and “Nothing Lasts Forever” was about a couple trying to fix things after going through a rough part in their relationship, and that they kept trying to fix their relationship issues but they seem to be unable to do that, the track was really a great track, it’s production was excellent, and lyrically it was really soulful.
Cole also talked about family issues as well. “Breakdown” was a really soulful and emotional track, it was one of the best of the album and it was full of emotional stories, mostly highlighting stories on Cole meeting his biological father, and him having issues with his mother, and “Daddy’s Little Girl” was something that was a bit different, instead of a couple’s relationship or family stories, he talked about a father-daughter relationship, the song was basically a story Cole made up about a fictional daughter that he’s watching growing up, and how she thinks she’s ready for the world and stuff like that, while her father, J. Cole thinks she’s trying to grow up too fast, it was easily one of the best tracks on the album, it was emotional, soulful, and something that a lot of people would relate to.
Here’s something really unique, Cole actually talked about the production and making of this album in some tracks, “Sideline Story” was a ‘behind the scenes’ track, it talked about Cole’s struggles behind his rise and what he had to sacrifice to make this album, it was a great track, and it was another one of my favorites on this album, and “God’s Gift” was one of those highlight tracks about how his rapping skill was a gift from god, therefore leading to making this entire album and hopefully making it successful.
19 tracks, a huge group of concepts, a huge menu of different styles, a lot of track with really strong production and great lyrics, what more can I say about Cole World: The Sideline Story? It was an outstanding album from begging to end, I mean, true, some tracks did suffer from a boring flow, but the good really pushes the bad away in this album. When Cole’s having fun he’s clever, when he’s being serious he brings the listener deep into what he’s talking about, it’s tough for an artist to do that, and Cole just did that with The Sideline Story.
What more could J. Cole do with Cole World: The Sideline Story? Did this debut show Cole’s skills? Clearly, it actually showed more than what he could do. Was this album better than his mixtapes? What are his mixtapes when comparing them to this album? How did it rank among other new generation debuts? It was probably the best one out of all of them, Lupe Fiasco gave hip-hop new, fresh blood with his debut “Food & Liquor”, and Cole did the same, and actually he did more. Cole World: The Sideline story was probably the best debut album I can remember to be honest, it beat out “Doggystyle” it beat out “The Slim Shady LP”, it beat out “The College Dropout” and it beat out “Food & Liquor” it was just that great of an album, what more can I say?
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