Here is the breakdown you need to ‘buy into’ before going any further: essentially, Cole is taking you back to the last decade, and the base of it all is his time at the address 2014 Forest Hills Drive (he sits atop the house itself on the stunning album cover). Cole has taken a massive risk (by his own standards) in releasing a brutally honest, deep and self-analysing album that with bring about a multitude of diverse emotions, depending on who is listening to it at the time. It was calculated, but fraught with potential difficulties – and in “2014 Forest Hills Drive”, J. Yet, every now and then, he’ll surprise us all – this year he moved to the other side of the world. It’s one thing to be the ‘everyman’ of hip hop, but at some point, is it just a symptom of overwhelming shyness? A lack of daring? An acceptance of mediocrity? Risk aversion can manifest itself in different ways – one of my friends is, by his own admission, extremely averse to taking any kind of chance on a daily basis: he constantly plays percentages. Cole doesn’t actually have any signifiers, anything particular distinct about him – and he made his major debut feature over half a decade ago, now. Why does this matter? Because the most influential MC’s tend to be so distinct that if you just did the “Ugh!” Biggie ad-lib on a train, someone would probably mouth “Listening to ‘Hypnotize’ eh?” “Uh-huh!” is Jay-Z.
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