J Cole Hyperbole

The genre of rap and hip-hop music has taken on a whole new persona in the generation of millennials. Fortunately, there are rappers such as Jermaine Cole, or “J Cole”, who work to hold on to a pure form of hip-hop and strive to portray a message in all of their songs. J Cole is a southern rapper with a northern style and flow. His main messages in all of his music is to speak the truth about his life and the world around him. You can listen to all his songs from the start of his career to now and you could understand who he is as and essentially listen to his growth as person. His song entitled “January 28th” is no exception to transparent style. The theme of the songs is to let his audience know that he extraordinary and he gives pieces

J Cole begins to point out how hard he had to work to get where he is. For 11 winters straight he took on New York’s climate (lns. 51) and while climbing the ladder of success, he rose the standards “…so high that you gotta get Obama to fore the air force to find it” (lns. 53). This hyperbole is not only a form of bragging, but by including the metaphor of the ladder to success, he lets his audience know that he is not trying to be just another famous rapper. He is trying to be so good that he changes the standards of what people consider to be a successful

It begins with anaphora by repeating the phrase “I aint”. By doing this, he emphasizing all the ideas associated with him that he never did and directly points out the stigmatism he had to overcome, while also bragging about who he became. It is important for him to emphasize these points because these are activities that he could have easily gotten into and people would expect him to do. But yet he made it out of the struggle without stooping down to that level which is a major accomplishment. He then goes on to name some of the greats he grew up on and some of the greats of today. His audience will automatically know who these people are and they will know the level of respect they have as rappers. But, the last few lines of the song end with “but check your birth date nigga, you aint the God/ …nigga Cole the God” (lns. 64, 66). This epigram makes this line the pentacle of the song. Even after naming all these important people, he’s saying that they might be great but they’re not him. He has something that sets him apart from anyone before or after