Media Perception: J.Cole vs. Kendrick Lamar
- Thread starter Jen The Prude
- Start date
The reason Kendrick is more poppin than Cole is that Cole raps about how he's not sure if he can fukk good and other shyt that sounds like something a chick would write in her diary. Thanks for letting me know he graduated tho, TIL.
I always got bothered by how Cole will take weak songs that got rejected from his first album like "wet dreamz" and use it years later 
but Be Free doesn't make the album
but Be Free doesn't make the album
Kendrick himself has already clarified that line wasn't about the black community but about himself and his gangbanging pastSo why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? / When gang banging make me kill a nikka blacker than me? / Hypocrite!
"In this final couplet, Kendrick Lamar employs a rhetorical move akin to—and in its way even more devastating than—Common’s move in the last line of “I Used to Love H.E.R.”: snapping an entire lyric into place with a surprise revelation of something hitherto left unspoken. In “H.E.R.”, Common reveals the identity of the song’s “her”—hip hop itself—forcing the listener to re-evaluate the entire meaning and intent of the song. Here, Kendrick Lamar reveals the nature of the enigmatic hypocrisy that the speaker has previously confessed to three times in the song without elaborating: that he grieved over the murder of Trayvon Martin when he himself has been responsible for the death of a young black man. Common’s “her” is not a woman but hip hop itself; Lamar’s “I” is not (or not only) Kendrick Lamar but his community as a whole. This revelation forces the listener to a deeper and broader understanding of the song’s “you”, and to consider the possibility that “hypocrisy” is, in certain situations, a much more complicated moral position than is generally allowed, and perhaps an inevitable one."
That's a cac's interpretation of K Dot's words and it's the most popular one.
In this scenario, by rallying around Trayvon or Mike Brown, the black "community as a whole" are labeled hypocrites. The quintessential "What about black on black crime?"
So, no, this album is not unapologetically black. Yes, Kendrick has a machine behind him and cacs love him.
The difference between J Cole and K Dot is J Cole has never rapped anything so ignorant or destructive.
so nah
FrederickDouglas
All Star
i don't have it handy. it was in his Rolling Stone interview that they printed in their magazineLink?
Watch that Black Boy Fly 
I don't see how any self loving and righteous Black man or woman can sit and hate on Kendrick after that song. How can you noy appreciate a Black man making out of that situation like that and doing something positive with their craft.
And fukk the OP who is a Drake stan... Drake will never make a song like that.
done with these lame ass gumps
I don't see how any self loving and righteous Black man or woman can sit and hate on Kendrick after that song. How can you noy appreciate a Black man making out of that situation like that and doing something positive with their craft.
And fukk the OP who is a Drake stan... Drake will never make a song like that.
done with these lame ass gumps
FrederickDouglas
All Star
right above the picture of him and Dre on the 3rd page
"I know the history. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking from a personal standpoint. I'm talking about gangbanging."
*If you think I talk about Kendrick too much, why are you here? Just hit that 'ignore' button*
For the rest you, continue on...
I think that we can all agree that J.Cole and Kendrick are viewed as the new school faces of conscious rap. However, I do think that when it comes to the media (white media especially), J.Cole is slightly overlooked and his music is judged harder than Kendrick's.
Why is this, I thought. And then it kinda hit me:
You see, unlike many rappers, J.Cole actually graduated college. And unlike most people, he actually graduated with HONORS. There's nothing about J.Cole that can make cacs feel inherently superior to him and so he's ignored or slightly brought down the size.
With Kendrick, it's different. While he is seemingly smart (the imagery in many of his songs are on point) and non-threatening, Kendrick is still hood - openly admitting to feeling awkward and insecure around white people. When he is rapping about drugs, uncouth friends and relatives, and the hardships of growing up in the ghetto, cacs get a perverse pleasure from that shyt. It makes them feel better about themselves. And so they place Kendrick on a pedestal and overrate everything single thing he does without (I suspect) even bothering to truly listen to the music.
I was really surprised when many people described TBAP as 'unapologetically black' while touting positive mainstream reviews of the album without a hint of irony.
If an album is unapologetically black and rages against the machine, shouldn't it make white people uncomfortable? Has anyone stopped to think why cacs are supporting music that supposedly low-key bashes them?
Of course, people here rarely see the forest for the trees.
Are talking about music critics or media in general? Because J. Cole gets more highlighted interviews than Kendrick. Dude even gets speaking engagements with top universities like Harvard. Letterman even gave him an hour long show.
*If you think I talk about Kendrick too much, why are you here? Just hit that 'ignore' button*
cole has 3 gold albums. the last one with no marketing. he has a super loyal fanbase.
he's more popular than modern Kanye sales wise
so idk wtf you're talking about breh
