Favourite Music Album of 2013

1. Born Sinner - J Cole
On his second album, J. Cole represents a self confident man who has come along way since being the first man to be signed to Jay Z's Roc Nation label. He believes he’s a front runner in the hip-hop game and constantly recognizes his idols in his new album such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls which you can hear in songs such as the introduction to the track Villuminati. For Jermaine it's always about delivering an album that cements his position at the top of the Rap Game. And Born Sinner definitely gives that. He isn’t just competing with those around him, but also his idols and the rappers at the top of the game most notably the controversial big headed Kanye West.

He pushed back the release of Born Sinner  a week to coincide with the release of his album Yeezus, something addressed in Forbidden Fruit which features Kendrick.  In the end Yeezus ended up selling around roughly 30k copies more than J Coles Born Sinner; which in all honesty is a bit of a joke, but then again Kanye appeals more to the more mainstream audience and has been around longer than J. Cole, in 3 years he's come so far and I believe their is so much more to come from him.



Personally speaking I love the way J. Cole opens his album saying “Sometimes I brag like Hov, sometimes i’m real like Pac”, which sets a example for what we’re going to hear the album. He takes upon various different styles and attitudes in the album, from this incredibly self confident man who’s willing to  go to war with Kanye West in terms of Album sales, to an artist who is some what depressed  and very light hearted and timid. This can be seen in one of the  most recognisable and mainstream  songs, Let Nas Down & the track called Power Trip, which we hear Jermaine rap about his admiration for Nas, basically saying from (quote taken from his song “Let Nas Down”) he used to “print out Nas raps and tape them up on my wall”. This respect for him is followed by his regret on hearing that Nas hated his single Work Out, which Jermaine has stated many times that he regrets making because he was viewed as a ‘Sell out’ in that respect and wasn’t the real J. Cole which I believe all true J.Cole fans would relate too.

It’s a very personal song  which I believe allows us to see another side of Jermaine. For all we hear about how rappers are talking about their new chains, being from the hood, and not caring about how much they spend. Jermaine is a refreshing change to the Hip Hop world and is the realest thing I’ve seen since the days of Pac and Biggie.
 
Kudos Jermaine, keep it going.