J. Cole Hits A Vein
On his loosie cut “procrastination (broke),” he struggles with writer's block yet sounds as inspired as ever.
First of all, I'd like to shoutout to all my new subscribers! Many of you joined after reading my Pigeons & Planes essay about Rick Rubin's book and my writing journey. Thank you all for the kind words and welcome to the show. I've gotten some great feedback from everyone (seriously, thank you all so much) so I'm gonna keep trying to write on a more personal tip.
On that note, I wanted to write about J. Cole's new song which I found deeply personal and harrowing.
J. Cole surprised fans this week with the loosie cut “procrastination (broke).” The story of the song and how it came to be is as interesting as the song itself. According to the cover art, Cole was struggling for inspiration so he looked up “J. Cole type beat” on YouTube, clicked the first beat he saw, and put the track together. The best part is Cole gave the song to the producer, Bvtman (who also made type beats paying homage to Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, 21 Savage and more) and let the producer upload it to his page and presumably keep the profits. Respect to Cole for likely changing that producer’s life.
The song is just one long verse that’s basically a written freestyle. “I write these words aimlessly,” he raps. It reminded me of his excellent feature on 21’s Savage’s “a lot,” where he recounts the verse as it unfolds, “He call it "a lot, " I open my book and I jot.”
On this track, he tip toes around the rhymes. The bars feel slightly too long but then, in typical Cole fashion, he connects them oh so smoothly. It’s the type of off-the-cuff rapping that often felt laborious for him when he was a young Simba. Now that he’s a grown king, with a fully grown mane, he delivers lines with understated confidence. It doesn’t feel forced, it sounds effortless even though it was honed over many years.
However, it’s clearly not that easy for him:
'Cause I need to finish this album
But hell, how many more times
Can I send this wooden pail down in that well
And pull it back up with the hope that it's filled?
Plus, it don't help that I'm rich now
Hearing those lines I’m reminded of Cole’s right-hand man Ibrahim Hamad recalling the time before Cole’s debut album when Cole was in the studio, depressed, struggling to come up with a hit just to secure a release date. Thankfully, Cole eventually overcame those early struggles as he embraced a creative freedom that wasn’t about chasing trends but about searching for inner peace.
The crux of “procrastination” is when he raps about no longer feeling the hunger he once felt as an artist now that he’s rich:
Uh, how do you tap into hunger
When you don't gotta wonder
'Bout when your next meal is comin' from?
Maybe you feel my conundrum
Or maybe the real is I’m so, um
Far removed from the struggles of everyday folks
My shit just ain't never gon' hit like it hit
When a nigga was a lil' more closer to broke
For all his success, it often does feel like Cole (and many of his day one fans) are always in search of that feeling of his early career, when he was blog era darling who dreamed of just meeting Jay-Z. I often find many Cole fans associate his music with their college days, perhaps it’s because college is a time when young people have some idea of what they want to be but still no idea of how to get there, something Cole (and every artist) struggles with early on.
One of the goals of this Substack for me was to explore who the Best Rapper Alive was and I realize I’ve done that enough. Despite always being in the mix, I don’t think J. Cole ever wore the championship belt. He had the unfortunate luck of having his prime overlap with Kendrick and Drake. If this was the ‘90s, Drake would be Jay and Kendrick would be Nas, which would make Cole…Prodigy? Raekwon? AZ? As great as all those guys are, none of them quite fit the mold because Cole was always a big star with an everyman appeal.
Either way, the problem was Kendrick is just more critically beloved and pushed the envelope further. Meanwhile, Drake was, and still is, an undeniable hitmaker who never seemed to get stuck in the studio or care what Nas might think as he rapped, sang, and trend-hopped his way to the top. Cole was a mix of both of them, but also always his own artist. He walked a different path.
The good news is, with the smoke of 2022 year clearing, the belt remains in sight for Cole. Drake is still a hitmaker, but seemingly having a midlife crisis as he cosplays as his favorite 2000s rappers. He can still go off, but the early vulnerability he brought to his music is so far gone. His once introspective raps have been replaced by humble brags and jaded lines about how he doesn’t trust his rap “friends.”
Meanwhile, fans may have left unsatisfied with Kendrick’s Mr. Morale but I’ll always defend that album because even if you don’t love it, you gotta respect Kendrick for making deeply personal music. As he once said, “Let soul speak, you let the meds talk.” Kendrick does offer the listener unfiltered thoughts from his psyche, something many artists struggle with.
Early Cole’s career, it always felt like he struggled with it too, too worried about what the audience, critics, or other artists might think. That’s not the case anymore. Even when he’s struggling with writer’s block when he does find the inspiration, he can hit a vein and bleed on the page.
As he’s grown and matured, he just kept getting more comfortable until he fully came into his own on 2014 Forrest Hills Drive. It hasn’t been perfect since then, I don’t love KOD or 4 Your Eyez Only, but they did continue the trajectory of him being open and honest. The Off-Season was proof he’s got plenty left in the tank (at the time I thought it was his best album, but I default back to 2014 now, which remains super popular on Spotify so I’d guess fans do too).
Sooner than later he’ll complete his work on his upcoming album, which might be titled It’s A Boy or the long-teased The Fall Off. He’s a rap legend still waiting to be king. If his album is as good as this loosie, maybe he can finally snatch the crown.