J. Cole unveiled his third studio album “Born Sinner” on Tuesday [June 18th] ; dropping the same day as going Kanye’s “Yeezus” album. In a recent interview with Connecticut’s Hot 93.7 radio station J.Cole talked about the new lp and some of his favorite tracks. The rapper notes he is more vulnerable on the new album; giving fans a journey of growth from his first lp til now. J. Cole taps into his love life, his personal triumphs over his imperfections, and letting down his favorite rapper in the process.
Take a peak at a few of his excerpts below:
“LAnd of the Snakes”
“ The L and the A are capitalized in Land. It is roughly about this time I went to L.A. to record an album and I thought about moving out there. I considered it, but the other side was telling me, ‘Don’t do it, it’s dangerous.’ You can lose yourself in Los Angeles, it has a dangerous climate– loosely [the song
] is about that. It’s just an ill song, [it has] a lot of good flows, and the beat is crazy.”
On “Let Nas Down” Track:
“This is probably the most important song on the album. The concept goes back to when I put out this song called ‘Work Out,’ the biggest single so far in my career. Long story short, Nas was disappointed in [‘Work Out’], and he wasn’t approving of the song.”
Cole mentioned how big of an influence Nas was on him at a young age, and his disapproval of Cole’s work was the influence behind the new track.
“I explain it in the song. I got defensive. I am a huge Nas fan, I hung his raps all over my wall–there were only a few rappers that made it to my wall. There was Nas, Eminem, Canibus, and Tupac. Maybe sometimes I would put DMX, sometimes Jay-Z would get a verse, but those are the only artists that made it to my wall.”
“I felt like [Nas] didn’t know the reason why I put the song out. I wrote [“Let Nas Down”] a year and some change after it happened and I didn’t tell anybody that I wrote this song until now… It stuck with me for that long.”
“She Knows” (Feating Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman)
“This song is all about temptation. A lot of the album is about temptation. [The track] is very big [and] the beat is crazy. It is the best beat on the album.”
On “Crooked Smile” song feat. TLC:
“This song is just an anthem. [Born Sinner] works in halves. The first half is depressed and like hell. The second half is like heaven. ‘Crooked Smile’ is the theme song for the second half of the album. It is like making it out of the depression and celebrating it.”
In one verse Cole raps: I’m not picture perfect/But I’m worth a picture still/
“The song is bigger than just my thing, it’s about everybody’s thing. Society tries to tell you there’s something about you that makes you inferior to the images they’re trying to put out there. [‘Crooked Smile’] is really me embracing my [imperfections] and trying to get other people to embrace theirs.”
On Teaming Up With TLC In Particular:
“I was [always] a big fan of them. They represent the theme of the song. I felt like it was a perfect fit.”
Here’s Cole’s upcoming single “Crooked Smile”