Why J. Cole's 2014 Forest Hills Drive Summary

In the article written by Shamontiel Vaughan entitled "Why J. Cole's '2014 Forest Hills Drive' is best rap album of the year,” the author makes a great point about artist having meaning to their music. The meaning behind J. Cole’s music consist of how the lyrics are based on his past in the state of North Carolina. Shamontiel talked about how rhyme patterns are nothing without a meaning. She explains how artist are comfortable with meaningless flows with words that shows expression that match the rhythm, but their content has basically no meaning. Most Artists rap about a bunch of nothing with a passionate flow, that at some point rappers need to tap into the true meaning of Hip-Hop, which is having flow and a message. The only true reason why I fell in love with J. Cole as an artist, is because of the fact of where he was born and raised with the support of his community. Lastly his platinum albums were so great, and he is different from any other artist.

His path started like many others as Hip-Hop usually just talks about degrading of women, promiscuity, guns and drugs. When Cole finished high school he went off to college at St. Johns University. He had always helped young African Americans at some point in their lives that have had similar dreams of becoming something in life. Rap has always dominated most of the black community to assist in the expression of their feelings, emotions and situations. Single parent homes are very common in the African American Community, and J. Cole’s is also a product of this unfortunate circumstance as he writes about his life through his music. He has been fascinated by rap since he was fourteen and followed his dreams becoming Jay-Z’s