listening to the album then learning how much of the music was borrowed made me less excited to go back and listen as great as the music is tbh. I can definitely see why he wants to go back to producing full time…he’s ran out of flows lol

like it leads to the “why would i not just go listen to The Light instead of I Love Her Again” type of conversation/perspectives which lessens calling it a classic

Technical ability and inspiration

Cole not gonna philosophize a bunch, he gone say get up and get it. True unc vibes

First off The Light isn't about hip-hop, I used to Love her is. He just sampled The Light to Pay homage to Common in general and put his own spin on it

Also the reason you listen is to appreciate Cole's own personal journey with hip-hop which was completely different from Common's in his time

Same reason you listen to "Gloria" by Kendrick which is also, albiet less obviously, homage to "I Used To Love Her"

Nah don't undersell him. He has more tools in his bag than that. Just needed to lock in some more.

I think this is about as locked in as it gets for a 41 year old J Cole and to expect more is unrealistic and sets you up to be unappreciative of all the great s*** he's doing here

It's not disrespectful to acknowledge that his main thing is being a great lyricist, like I be saying I think Nas is a great a***og for what Cole has become

No one expects Nas to be on some Ye s*** or to out hit/ out accessible Jay-Z for example that just not what he does

Think you meant I used to love Her. The Light is amazing too (Like Water for Chocolate as a whole really).

I did fw the Petey Pablo moment/TI "24" interpolation moments but then you get these cheat code hooks like the DMX hook and I'm thinking "I like this song but damn, now I just wanna listen to How's it Going Down" lol.

Homage is fine and Cole is usually more tasteful with it unlike Logic whereby that's damn near all he does but sprinkled in with biracial bars. Just that all the people he's tapping into carved their own path. Hell, the whole big 3 are all students of the game but Cole's refusal to deviate from the playbook has always been a double-edge sword.

Hit the Gas is hitting diff rn

Ngl fire squad is mid bar for bar.

FHD hits to me because of the time it dropped. Perfect moment. Lyrically, it’s a step down from so much of his discography. Musically, it’s mixtape level Cole. I always thought born sinner had FNL level rapping and FHD had FNL level music. The fall off is the perfect mix. Maybe more warm up vibes but it’s what I’ve wanted from Cole: an album on the level of his mixtapes. And overall he’s improved so much

he interpolated The Light on I Love Her Again

just sampled Common’s opening bar, tuned it up and placed it in his song as the chorus

and yea the DMX moment is EXACTLY where i was like well s***, I’d rather just listen to X lmaoo not tryna hear that on allegedly your last album as J. Cole

So the number went down as the week progressed??

300K -> 291K -> 280K final

Man to me one of his biggest mistakes with this s*** was leaving off Port Antonio because sheeesh he smoked this s***

Also would've fit nicely along the Big and Pac track and brought home that whole concept of choosing peace over beef

Also since he saif TFO is like Hov dropping RD last would've been cool to get Port Antonio as Dead Presidents homage

I'm not even a religious nigga I'm a Neil DeGrasse Tyson face ass mf but Man Up Above gives me chills mannnn

I thought we were referring to the concept of the song, but yeah, he did sample The Light. That music video is a fuzzy childhood memory now.

When you point out that homage issue, people think it's hate but it's really not.

Knew it

This album so beautiful man

Didn’t help that the vinyls were sold out way before the full week

Album very much underperformed

ktt2.com/kendrick-fans-are-setting-him-up-for-failure-with-their-unrealistic-32519257/5298

I like the album, I have never head nodded that hard to an intro song

with that said, I am able to take a step back and critique things i love honestly and why I’m not eager to go back like let’s say The Off-season cause of the build up then the realization that s***, it’s a lot of homage lmao

Fr. Coulda been a hit if he worked on hit the gas

Man just seeing the reaction to not only this but certain s*** in general just makes me feel like hip-hop is dead not because good hip-hop doesn't exist but because people don't understand it or appreciate it anymore unless its loud and artsy like Ye or Kendrick or catchy like Drake

Like even lukewarm reactions to some of Nas latest s*** or s*** from Griselda got me questioning weather or not niggas actually like rap