Sometimes music can make you feel like you’re home like that. I found myself putting it on a lot, no matter where I was in the world, whenever I was feeling homesick or anxious. Sometimes I focus on the flow to show the skills I got. Sometimes I brag like Hov, sometimes I’m real like Pac. Cole, time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade. Lyrically he is conversational which lends itself to the feelings of nostalgia that I get from this album. Sometimes I brag like Hov, now I’m in the limelight ’cause I rhyme tight. Cole’s production and beat choices, he tends to go down a much more musical path than a lot of other rappers and the beats often feel a bit more on the R&B side. I was listening to this album a lot while on tour buses, vans, planes, in hotel rooms, while riding in Ubers to various studios, and it was one of the first times music of this genre was paired with an experience that wasn’t just my own imagination, or what I had seen in movies or television.
As in, it’s one thing to listen to an American rap album from the distant shores of Australia, but another thing entirely to be hearing it in context, kind of like real-time in front of my eyes.
It was right around the time that I had started to spend a lot of time in the US, and perhaps that’s a big part of why it grabbed me so much it kind of just made so much sense. He would redeem himself with 2013s Born Sinner, but by that time it was too late from then on, Cole was pigeon-holed as the third-wheel to Drake and. Miguel, but didn’t fully soak up the whole album until a couple of years later. I had heard maybe one of the singles when it first came out, ‘Power Trip’ ft. On his debut album, Cole World: The sideline story, he made his mark as one of the most lyrically talented rappers in the world. It sold 297,922 albums in just the first week. It went straight to number 1 on iTunes South Africa. Cole, Born Sinner (2013)Įvery now and then I discover an album that I would consider a perfect album. Cole officially released his second album, Born Sinner, on June 18th.