The Great Debate: Will J. Cole Become A Mainstream Star?
Welcome to “The Great Debate,” a new column that features opposing opinions from TWV and our good friends Refined Hype on a particular topic. Our side of the debate will be featured here and the other side of the story will be on Refined Hype. This week’s topic is whether or not J. Cole will become a mainstream star. We took the side of yes, while RH says that Cole will end up as just another internet emcee with a solid buzz.
Read both and vote on which argument is more compelling.
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“If you’re going to sign to Roc Nation, just realize it’s going to take a second. I’m into artists. I’m not really into putting a single out. It takes a minute to become an artist. You can’t just come off the street, go in the studio and make a classic album.” – Jay-Z’s interview with Angie Martinez at Hot 97.
In today’s microwave hip-hop society, everyone wants what they want fast and quick. There’s no real care taken in the preparation of an album anymore. It can be a TV dinner with some cold spots still in it and the general public will gobble it up, only to be hungry and unsatisfied again in less than an hour. J. Cole is an artist who you have to wonder whether or not he’ll be the hot emcee of the moment, or have a much longer career ahead of him. Could he have dropped an album by now? Sure. But something’s not quite right yet. And rather than drop a half-assed project stuffed with the first batch of songs J. Cole recorded, Jay-Z and Co. have decided to take their time with Cole’s debut Cole World: The Sideline Story. And what do we do? Our ungrateful asses begin to question if the kid has star quality. Patience is certainly not a virtue in today’s musical climate.
The reality of the situation is that J. Cole is still a work in progress. He’s fresh off the press and the ink is barely dry. The music speaks for itself as the buzz for “Friday Night Lights” reached full retard status (word to Tropic Thunder) before it dropped and crushed the net. But J. Cole is like a freshman standout who desperately needed another year of college to hone his craft. If he were to come out earlier, he wouldn’t possess the natural artistic instincts to make it work out and would likely be swallowed alive and tossed aside by the industry. To become a star is far more than being about your talent, and Jay-Z is fully aware of that. As of right now, he’s likely polishing his stage show, understanding how to handle interviews better and in the lab working on his craft.
J. Cole has mastered his fan base. He’s given them what they want. But the fact of the matter is that Cole has to step out of that box in order to be defined as a star. His music will have to reach a new audience and he’s clearly had a hard time hitting that moving target. But you can tell that the effort has been put in as his collaboration with Trey Songz “Can’t Get Enough” is aimed at a more “women at the nightclub” demographic. “Work Out” was another experiment, it just happened to fail… miserably. Was “Work Out” a terrible choice for a song? Yes. But aren’t artists entitled to have a false start or two? It’s not like “Work Out” had a video on MTV and BET and halted all of his momentum. It’s obvious that J. Cole is at the tipping point and legitimately one song away from the Promised Land. The videos being shot for collab with Wale “Bad Girls Club” and “Can’t Get Enough” will spread his wings a little further if they end up on television.
And let’s be real, the Jay-Z factor is major. If you think that Hov is going to let his first signee to Roc Nation fall flat on his face, then we don’t know what to tell you. I don’t see Jay-Z not providing the push necessary for J. Cole to become a star of some sort.
You can say J. Cole doesn’t have “personality.” But honestly, neither did Nas. You can say he missed his moment, but you could argue the same thing for Drake. Remember when “Over” dropped? Everyone was iffy on whether or not Drake chose the right song when it dropped in March. When the album dropped in June, those critics were silenced as a star was legitimately born. You can argue that Wiz Khalifa passed him up, but Wiz has been in the industry for years before landing in the right situation at Atlantic. Not to mention, he learned the ropes and figured out the dos and don’ts of becoming a bonafide star.
J. Cole is as raw as raw can be so expectations should be tempered. Will he go gold first week? Not likely. This is a long term project. The goal is to create an album that will have the snowball effect because it is just that damn good. This isn’t ringtone rap. This isn’t a novelty artist that will ride the wave of a single with a dance and hope people will be bamboozled into buying the album. J. Cole deserves to have a well-rounded career that hits every nail on the head. And if Jay-Z’s statement about taking his time to become an artist has any truth to it, we should restrain ourselves from cutting down the Cole tree before it grows. The talent is undeniable, the buzz is still solid and there’s an appeal that touches more people than your average internet rapper. Let’s just allow things to play out first.
Check out the opposing view from Refined Hype HERE
a few months ago I said he had a shot but now…he just waited too damn long #imjustsayin
he gave you a fcking date… he assured you that the album is better than FNL and every leak is a fucking classic (..even when there’s a ass load of fans who decide not to listen to them)
what else you want?
who cares for the date? some of us have been waiting for a album since 2007-08, and all his stuff isnt classics, just cause you make a good song doesnt mean its a classic. and just casue he promises its better then fnl doesnt mean it will be. everything is based around opinoin and im starting to feel like this dude drops more interveiws then he does songs.
ill tell you what i want, i want this album out 2009-10 but i cant have that can i? i dont know why he would wanna be a mainstream star anyway. cause if he wants to be alegend then he should go underground cause he could gain more respect that way but maybe he will be like mos def and stay mainstream without getting radio play.
Great post. Personally I think the pure musical talent will always beat questionable business decisions. He is just so far above his competition.
A. HOLE YOU PAPOOSED YOURSELF!!!©
I feel that people need to stop thinking about the whole “he took too long” thing. Regardless if it takes time for J. Cole to blossom, you can’t deny his potential to open a new window in hip hop. Just remember that once he’s done with what he’s taking his time with, he’ll deliver something that will leave a mark in hip hop..Jay was in the game since frekin 88!! he didn’t get his album going till 96!! Cut these artist some slack..Im not a hardbody J. Cole fan, but I do think he makes GREAT music..Music is timeless and infinite..Instead of throwing Cole under the bus, we should appreciate that we have an brand new artist on a mainstream label, making sure he doesn’t set himself short and disappoint us with trash.
DONT SLEEP on HIM people…
if you ever listen to at least two of his songs, you shouldn’t.
he said he would quit before he put out an album of mainstream songs
this is a well thought out article,kudos,& an interesting debate-4me idont care if he becomes a star,i just want quality-ican c the batle he is going thru,presure tryin to get a radio hit,but ucan he’s tryin too hard,ucan c that with ‘work out’..iwish him the best but he just has to be himself to succeed..
j cole is dope.. but the window of opportunity has passed for him already.. too much free music in the world for people to buy albums.. he doesn’t really have a gimmick or moniker if you will like Kanye, Jayz or even Wiz Khalifa.. Kanye has his production, fashion, and an outgoing personality. Wiz has his weed fan base a lot with the whole snoop dogg generation. J cole is no Jay z.
he’s just a dope rapper.. nothing wrong with that.. i wish him well, i’ve actually got to meet the dude, and he’s the most humble person i’ve seen.. Not cocky at all like a lot of these other underground rappers..
lets face it, the market for hip hop is too flooded.. radio is wack.. i don’t see any rapper being a superstar for awhile, unless the mainstream forces us on it. Example, Lil Wayne.. He has a huge fan base, but at the same time, there’s a whole fan base who thinks he’s the worst rapper alive. If it wasn’t for mainstream radio putting him on so much, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Throw Cole on those same tracks, he’ll be a star. Lyrically he kills the game. Case in point, hip hop is dying. Well not strictly hip hop, but being just a rapper.
Well he seems to have all the necessary tools to be a star, right staff with Roc Nation, a mentor in Jay-Z, a built-up fanbase and lyrics to go with it. The thing is Wale had all of that to his album only have pretty much mediocre sale and a single that didn’t reach the Top 40 on the Billboard charts. The thing is most of us who care and search these guys on hip hop blogs and websites like this don’t really mind but it’s the fact we they gravity their music into Album of the Year nominations with the Grammys or have people playing their music on rotation in radio station.
Basically what this debate is saying is can J. Cole have the amount of mainstream success to play Jingle Ball? That’s an answer that I think can go either way and I’d say it works the same way for Big Sean, who doesn’t have the same lyrical ability but does have the same amount of fanfare and buzz around him. Big Sean seems like he’s doing well with it, has a Top 40 hit but a Top 40 isn’t a Top 10 hit which guys like Jay-Z, Eminem, and Kanye West can get.
So these are his choices in how successful he gets
He can reach a Wiz Khalifa-level, where he reaches the mainstream level where most people want him to be
or Big Sean-level, where he can garner a Top 40 hit, with a bit of a buzz on radio
or Wale-level, where he’ll be known to blogs and the internet but when it comes to the radio, it seems unlikely
First of all jay-z sighned j.Cole for a reason. He is the truth! Everyone out here in this so called hip hop world is working for they’re rite now money and rite now music. Wiz, big Sean, are good, don’t get me wrong but that is rite now for the moment music. J.Cole has that now and later music. You can still listen to his songs from 5 years ago and jam it like it was 5 months old. That’s good music. That is what u call the future for hip hop music.
jay signed him cause he say a chance to get more money plane and simple. i dont think he really cares about him being the truth
No. For one simple reason… J. Cole doesn’t want to be mainstream.