Lav's Music Corner

J. Cole is a North Carolina based rapper who is now over a decade into his career. He has had a bit of an interesting relationship with the reception of his albums. While each of his projects have been major commercial successes he hasn't necessarily won over critics with the exception of his 2014 Forrest Hills Drive  project. Though he is consistently cited as a lyrically strong and socially conscious rapper, he has never achieved the level of acclaim as some of his contemporaries.  Review By Lav: I think I stand in a pretty similar place to most people, particularly other critics, when it comes to J. Cole. While he reps my home state that still doesn't make up for plenty of his projects being padded out with incredibly mediocre additions and mislead lyrical themes. This sort of came to a head last year when J. Cole was publicly called out for his lack of political awareness by Noname and made a track and statement essentially denying that he was ever trying to be socially co...