The internet lends itself to boatloads of bloated, often convoluted arguments about who is or isn’t the G.O.A.T. when it comes to hip-hop. We’ve been guilty of it here, and it’s easy to get caught up in the impulse to rank and rate rappers based on their latest mixtapes, albums and even diss tracks. Pop culture is fun that way. Two rappers — Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole — dominate most of the G.O.A.T.-speak these days (sorry, ‘Ye, you’re a hell of a producer, but lyrically, you’re third at very best), but the funny thing is that, on the surface, J. Cole has been warning fans about the obsession with crowning a top dog of rap since the release of 2014 Forest Hills Drive four years ago.
“Ain’t gonna be no more kings. Be wary of any man that claims, because deep down he clings onto the need for power,” Cole said during the outro on “Fire Squad” from his Grammy-nominated 2014 Forest Hills Drive. “The reality, he’s a coward.”
There’s a lot to unpack on that album. There’s a lot to unpack on the breadth of the North Carolina rapper’s catalog, and for 90-minutes at Tampa’s Amalie Arena, Cole and more than 11,000 fans wasted no time and did just that. From the first self-reflective bars of set opener “Window Pain” to the last contemplative lines of “No Role Modelz,” Cole — who is on tour supporting a new, pain-addled fifth studio album KOD — was self-deprecating, uplifting, assertive, afraid and upfront with a room who seemingly knew every word to all 24 songs on the setlist.
He addressed the root of all evil on “ATM” (it stands for “Addicted to money” for Cole, who is a regular on Forbes’ Hip-Hop Cash Kings list), coyly touched on how prescription drugs ruin lives on “Kevin’s Heart” and even rallied against how tax money is spent and misspent on a high-hat-driven performance of “BRACKETS.”
“Tampa if you tired of paying these bitch ass taxes, don’t know where your money is going, then make some noise,” he said to the of cheers you hear when some flat-taxer starts preaching to the Tea Party. “Y’all felt that shit huh? Fucking robbery.”
The song goes on to criticize low graduation rates, teachers who don’t look like the at-risk populations they’re instructing, and the misleading history that’s bound between the covers of taxpayer-funded textbooks (“Got us learning about the heroes with the whitest of skin,” the songs says, “one thing about the men that’s controlling the pen that write history, they always seem to white-out they sins”). It would only get heavier from there.
IT TAKES YEARS
J. Cole and Wale bring hip hop to the Straz in Tampa
Backed by a behind-the-scenes live band that included a string trio, the already emotional message on “Ville Mentality” grew even more moving in the hands of Cole. He threw it all the way back for his day one fans on a spirited run through “Nobody’s Perfect,” and continued to effortlessly connect while the entire room on “Can’t Get Enough” from his 2011 album, Cole World: The Sideline Story. Throughout almost all of it, Cole’s fans went word-for-word with their hero. The devotion led Cole to just stand in place with a hand on his forehead while the arena sang the words to “Power Trip” back at him.
Critics of the new school of rap music are everywhere (and Cole hinted at many of their arguments during an encore take of “1985” where he offers advice to all of the “Lil” rappers who’ve trolled fans of conscious hip-hop by releasing songs like “Fuck J Cole”), but watching Cole — along with Kendrick Lamar, who drew 13,000 to the same room last year — would give hope to anyone who thinks rap in 2018 is all about eating Xanax, dabbing or tattooing your body from forehead to foot.
KOD, according to Cole, stands for three things: “Kids on Drugs” (because he’s worried that they are), “King Overdose” (reference to himself and his own struggles with addictions of many kinds), and “Kill Our Demons” (because it’s our duty to try and overcome it all). On paper, that sounds like some old man ranting, but watching Cole’s fans — all his age and younger — interact with him is refreshing.
On “FRIENDS” — where Cole utilized pitched down vocals to have a conversation with himself — tough subjects like mental health, troubled childhoods and the reliance of drugs to self-medicate pain away all get laid out on the table (“My database of narcotics, it’s growing long,” Cole raps). He doesn’t chastise the practice, but encourages listeners, his friends, to get out of the hole by abandoning the pressures of the world and finding new, less-hip methods of coping.
“One thing about your demons they bound to catch up one day. I’d rather see you stand up and face them than run away,” he rapped, eyes nearly watery, over the pseudo boom-bap of live snare, hi-hat and tom. “I understand this message is not the coolest to say, but if you down to try it I know of a better way — meditate.”
He told a room full of 20-somethings to meditate. And they listened. A J. Cole concert probably isn’t the most appropriate place to have a conversation about who is or isn’t the G.O.A.T., but it was still one of the greatest things we’ve ever seen.
See more of Gabby’s photos from the show, and listen to a playlist of songs from the set, here.
J. Cole Setlist
Window Pain (Outro)
A Tale of 2 Citiez
Fire Squad
Photograph
The Cut Off
Deja Vu
ATM
Motiv8
Kevin’s Heart
BRACKETS
Nobody’s Perfect
Work Out
Can’t Get Enough
Ville Mentality
Neighbors
Love Yourz
Apparently
Wet Dreamz
G.O.M.D.
Power Trip
KOD
FRIENDS
—
1985
No Role Modelz
This article appears in Aug 9-16, 2018.
