At midnight on Friday, April 20, J. Cole released his fifth studio album, titled
KOD
. The album announcement came just four days before its release, with Cole tweeting “New album.
KOD
4/20” the evening of April 16.
Earlier that day, Cole hinted at the impending release when he tweeted out a cryptic message that read, “NYC. Come through. Couple hours from now. First come first serve.” The tweet was accompanied by a photo that read, “No photos, no cameras, no bags, no press list, no guest list.” That night, Twitter was alight with videos of people excitedly leaving the Gramercy Theater in New York City, proclaiming that they had just listened to the entirety of Cole’s latest work.
KOD’
s cover art was done by Detroit artist Kamau Haroon, whose artist name is Sixmau, according to
Vibe
. Aside from the rich colors and surreal images of children consuming an assortment of drugs, the cover reads, “This album is in no way intended to glorify addiction.” The message lines up with the meaning of “KOD”, which Cole says has three interpretations: Kids on Drugs, King Overdosed, and Kill Our Demons.
The album marks a full departure from the pop-infused sounds of Cole’s earlier albums,
Cole World: The Sideline Story, Born Sinner
and 2014
Forest Hills Drive,
in which he rapped about losing his virginity, braces, and generally being the greatest rapper alive, among other topics. In December of 2016, Cole released
4 Your Eyez Only
, which took his music in a completely different direction. The album is partly rapped from the perspective of Cole’s murdered friend and infuses classical music with more singing and less bass, relative Cole’s previous works. The change in sound was critically and commercially successful, debuting at the number one spot on the US
Billboard
200 and becoming certified Platinum in April 2017.
KOD
picks up where
4 Your Eyez Only
left off, at least in terms of the tone and sound of the music. Both albums begin with a slow, largely instrumental track that sets up the thematic material to come. Each follows up the initial track with a “harder” song that showcases Cole’s ability to rap for minutes at a time with a natural, braggadocious energy. Whereas
4 Your Eyez Only
goes on to be a sobering, highly personal testimony on the loss of a friend and the effects of his death,
KOD
is a much lighter, if still serious, meditation (pun intended, for those familiar with the album) on substance abuse and the state of hip-hop.
Cole dedicates the album’s early tracks to a series of vices in their modern form: online relationships in “Photograph,” money-grubbing on “ATM” and “Motiv8,” and drug addiction on “Kevin’s Heart.” These songs carry a clear message, but are also more ear-friendly on first listen than some of the album’s later tracks, though none of the album seems tailored to the radio. “Kevin’s Heart” is a stand-out, using comedian Kevin Hart’s cheating scandal in December 2017 as the backdrop for the experience of being addicted to drugs. The chorus reads, “Slip me a xanny at once/I got the earth in a blunt/I get the skirt when I want/I get to skrrt when I want,” and satirizes some of the favorite themes of hip-hop’s so-called “new wave” rappers — Xanax, marijuana, women, and fast cars.
“Kevin’s Heart” is
KOD
’s catchiest song, and a good one too, but far from its most impressive. That label goes to either “Once an Addict — Interlude” or “Window Pain — Outro” (honorable mention: “FRIENDS” and “The Cut Off”). In the former, Cole discusses his personal connection to the issue of substance abuse, chronicling his strained relationship with his mother in his youth as she battled alcoholism. Although the track contains a line so hilariously corny that it sounds like fourth-grade poetry (“I’m still all ears like Basset Hounds”), it is mostly an effective conduit through which Cole powers home the album’s core message. He raps: “This ain’t the woman I know, why I just sit and observe?/Why don’t I say how I feel?/When I do, she’s defensive for real/Well maybe things get better with time, I heard it heals/Little did I know how deep her sadness would go/Lookin’ back, I wish I woulda did more instead of runnin’.”
“Window Pain — Outro” continues a feature Cole introduced in
4 Your Eyez Only
— a child’s perspective on the album’s issues. Here, a young girl’s voice begins the song with the story of her cousin’s shooting death, which is eerily similar to the voice of the girl on
4 Your Eyez Only’s
“Ville Mentality” who speaks on her father’s (Cole’s friend) murder. “Window Pain — Outro” features self-reflection on Cole’s part — his desires in life, relationship with family, and thoughts on his own celebrity — but concludes with the same girl’s voice responding to the question: “So why do y’all think that bad stuff happen? Like why can’t the world just be all nice things?”
The girl answers: “Because God is tryna, um/Warn-warn us or teach us a lesson that we need to learn/Or He’s tryna warn us of He’s comin’ back to, um, see us and take us home and redo the world.” This outro is one of the key moments on the album, veering into the realm of the spiritual and opening the door to an alternate interpretation of Cole’s ruminations on drugs and alcohol — one of sin and redemption.
At times,
KOD
, with its stripped-down production, love of capital letters, and focus on ailments of the human conditions, is reminiscent of Kendrick Lamar’s
DAMN
., which featured songs like “LOYALTY.,” “LUST.,” and “LOVE.” The similarities are certainly there, but while
DAMN
. possessed more of a sanctified air and featured popular hits like “DNA.” and “HUMBLE.,”
KOD
is more intimate, and designed to be less of a global spectacle. “FRIENDS” won’t be the official song of the NBA playoffs like “DNA.” was last year, but you are likely to hear it played among close friends and purveyors of “real” hip-hop.
The album is not without its flaws. “BRACKETS” features some of Cole’s most impressive rapping, but its lengthy, ambitious final verse stumbles as Cole attempts a takedown of the tax system in America. He raps: “If I’m givin’ y’all this hard-earned bread, I wanna know/Better yet, let me decide, bitch, it’s 2018/Let me pick the things I’m funding from an app on my screen.” The delivery is deadly serious, but lacks the punch that Cole likely desires. Perhaps it is because the issue of taxes is considerably drier than a comedian’s extramarital affair or an Instagram relationship, but Cole has also been known to “preach” on his songs in a way that leads detractors to sarcastically comment, “No one is smart enough to comprehend the
true
meaning of J. Cole’s music.”
Many have also made note of the album’s final track — “1985 — Intro to ‘The Fall Off’” (the title perhaps hinting at another upcoming project). On it, Cole addresses the “new wave” of rap, which has made its name by glorifying the exact vices that Cole cautions against. Addressing an unnamed rapper (hypothetically Lil Pump or Smokepurpp, both of whom have dissed Cole in the past), he raps over a simple beat about the pitfalls of celebrity at a young age. Whereas “BRACKETS” felt overly self-righteous at times, Cole’s message on this track is neither sanctimonious nor judgemental. The single verse on “1985” is arguably the album’s best; Cole raps: “I must say, by your songs I’m unimpressed, hey/But I love to see a Black man get paid/And plus, you havin’ fun and I respect that/But have you ever thought about your impact?/These white kids love that you don’t give a fuck/’Cause that’s exactly what’s expected when your skin black/They wanna see you dab, they wanna see you pop a pill/They wanna see you tatted from your face to your heels/And somewhere deep down, fuck it, I gotta keep it real/They wanna be black and think your song is how it feels.”
No song on
KOD
is a miss on Cole’s part. Even when he hits rough patches (see: Basset Hounds and a proposal for iTaxes), Cole makes you quickly forget them with top-notch production, innovative flows, and a strong message maintained throughout. Just like
4 Your Eyez Only,
the album will likely fly under the radar this summer with the impending release of projects from Drake and Kanye West, but this observation speaks more to Cole’s genuine, admirable commitment to quality production over commercial success.
Still,
KOD
will add further fuel to J. Cole’s supporters’ favorite tagline — “Double platinum with no features!” The saying references
2014 Forest Hills Drive
, an album that was certified Double Platinum despite featuring no guest verses. Cole maintained his solo act on
4 Your Eyez Only
and now with
KOD
(aside from the presence of “kiLL edward”, Cole’s alter ego who appears on two tracks with a modified version of Cole’s voice). Questions about his aversion to working with other rappers on full-length projects are partially answered in the track “KOD”, in which he raps that these artists “ain’t worthy to be on my shit.”
The results speak for themselves. Cole went Platinum with
4 Your Eyez Only
and is on his way there with
KOD;
the album earned 2018’s highest first-week sale numbers, with Billboard reporting that its 397,000 equivalent album units earned made it the number one album in America. Additionally, he broke Apple Music’s and Spotify’s record for the most first day US album streams.
Cole remains one of hip-hop’s — if not music’s — preeminent voices and influencers. As the world struggles to comprehend the latest turn in the Kanye West saga,
KOD
should prove to be an effective antidote and a reminder that rap can still flourish in many different forms. Those struggling to find a balance between Cole’s sound and that of the “new wave” would be wise to heed
KOD
’s oft-repeated mantra: Choose wisely.
