This year, J. Cole gave rap fans the opportunity to wade into nostalgia. His new podcast series, Inevitable, recollects the first chapter of his career, and he’s spent the past few weeks re-releasing his early mixtapes to DSPs. Later this month, he’ll take the stage at Madison Square Garden for a Forest Hills Drive 10-year-anniversary concert (replete with new editions of the album featuring eight unreleased songs from that era). It’s clear the Fayetteville-born MC is celebrating his considerable foothold in rap history. His latest offerings are a welcome distraction from whatever was going on this past spring, with his ill-fated “7-Minute Drill” diss and public apology to Kendrick Lamar.
Last month, Cole announced Inevitable on Instagram, saying the podcast came from “therapeutic” conversations with Dreamville Records President Ibrahim Hamad and Dreamville Films director Scott Lazer where they “[recapped] the whole journey up to present day.” In his candid caption, he noted, “If you rocked with me at any point so far on my journey, I hope this will give you even more perspective and fill in a lot of blanks. If you have your own dream in life that you hope to achieve, in any field, I hope that this will feed your spirit, giving you confidence to believe in that dream and the encouragement to push through the tough times.”
The sentiment was true to the Dreamville boss’ career-long compulsion with fulfillment. And the 10-part first season, available to stream on their website for $10, offers a trove of reflections and lessons from a time before he was a multi-millionaire member of hip-hop’s so-called Big 3. Four episodes of the weekly series have dropped to this point. During the latest entry, Cole focuses on his search for a breakout single, which includes several “this isn’t a hit” rebuffs from Roc Nation boss Jay-Z. Cole even revealed that Jay-Z once asked Drake to “give” Cole a hit in front of both men. Since then, Cole has dropped numerous multi-platinum singles, proving that he figured out whatever elements of hitmaking had previously eluded him. His candor about not knowing the ins and outs of hit singles and grappling with the balance of mass appeal and cultural purity is relatable for many listeners minding the confounding relationship between authenticity and popularity.
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Elsewhere, memories of jabbing at Kanye on his own track, his reverse recruitment of Roc Nation to sign him, and his competitive rivalry with Drake and Kendrick offer early glimpses of the “Big 3” era. The show feels like a spinoff of It’sTheReal’s The Blog Era podcast, which swept listeners into remembrance of hip-hop’s digital democratization. It’s possible that the rollout of Inevitable was planned way before his “7 Minute Drill” gaffe, but his timing is impeccable.
On top of Inevitable, Cole has dropped his The Warm Up, The Come Up, and Friday Night Lights mixtapes to DSPs. It’s a smart move for any artist with projects that aren’t on streaming. Placing the beloved mixtapes in hip-hop’s main marketplace will reacquaint fans and even reach young listeners who only know of Cole with the freeform locs.
Cole is also dropping two 10th-anniversary editions of his star-making album 2014 Forest Hills Drive. One version of the project will feature the album’s original album cover shrouded in blue and feature four previously unreleased songs titled “Home Soon,” “Die Together,” “Judgement Day,” and “Winter Wonderland.” The second version, of which there are 2,014 vinyl, will have an alternate cover with four other songs: “Keep Heaven Dancing,” “Miles,” “Black Man In Hollywood,” and “Obviously.”
His back-to-the-future play is smart. After weakly dissing Kendrick on Might Delete Later’s “7-Minute Drill,” rescinding the song from DSPs after a public apology at his Dreamville fest, and figuratively picking the scab on his recent track, “Port Antonio,” Cole’s reputation was in the mud. To offset that, he’s revisiting the nascent chapter when he got it out the mud.
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Drake may have been trying to do the same thing with his 100 Gigs data dump. The mega dump he dropped in August features clips of him recording and talking through songs from his classic catalog. He also dropped four songs (which were exclusively on his site at first but later uploaded to DSPs). Both men have become anathema, and their reflective exploits are being received as attempts to fortify with past glory. To this point, Cole’s work has been more effective. He paired his reflections with the re-release of beloved music, whereas the music Drake dropped showed that his Midas touch may be fading. “No Face” is the most impressive song of the 100 Gigs quartet. But while trying to rebound from the biggest L in rap history, he would’ve been better served with a song carrying the mountainous appeal of the record-breaking “In My Feelings,” which he dropped after Pusha T got the best of him in 2018.
Despite what stan Twitter is saying, it feels like Kendrick’s 2024 has permanently re-appraised the Big 3 discussion (for those who even subscribe to it). The only battle seems to be for second place. For much of the year, Drake and Cole seemed to be too punchdrunk to figure out their next move — or at least one that made sense. Before Drake’s recent litigious exploits, Cole’s decision to rescind his Kendrick Lamar diss was the most blasphemous hip-hop move of the year. But now he’s setting the stage for his final album, The Fall Off, with moves that, intentionally or not, may clean his slate and envelop all of us in yore. Nostalgia is a superpower, and Cole just may become a rap superhero again.
