The ending has a rather obvious twist but that doesn’t detract much, and the ‘z’ on the end brings to mind Tupac tracks which, one presumes, little Jermaine would have been obsessed with as a yout’. That would, ordinarily, be the stuff of nightmares, but the song just works because it’s so identifiable. It’s a lush opening, and leads into one of the most fully-formed songs on the long play: “Wet Dreamz” is a masterclass in storytelling rap, in which Cole gives an incredibly realistic account of his first time having sex. It brings to mind Michelangelo’s saying: “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Cole spans various topics, from his personal challenges, to Ferguson, and then addressing Drake/Kendrick about who the real God is (he shares his birthday with Rakim). Like Kanye’s MBDTF intro, which asks “Can we get much higher?” the intro to FHD finds Cole asking us and himself “Do you wanna be happy?” It’s a challenge of sorts to a 29 year old who is in danger of allegedly losing himself, and it’s already refreshing to hear “January 28th” exist in stark contrast to the vast majority of his first two albums. If you are just giving this a cursory listen, you will be able to pick holes all over FHD if, however, you really commit to it, you’ll find subtle gems interwoven into every piece of fabric. The riskier element is that he essentially role-plays songs later on in the LP, especially from “St Tropez” to “Hello” where his ‘character’ finds career success but loses himself. To me, the album conjures up hazy memories of 2002 to 2005, in particular. Then, we launch headfirst into something akin to “good kid, m.A.A.d city” except over a much longer chronological period of time. Following a mood-setting intro – which acts a subtle mission statement for FHD – you get a “December 4th” kind of set up song (“January 28th).
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Here is the breakdown you need to ‘buy into’ before going any further: essentially, Cole is taking you back to the last decade, and the base of it all is his time at the address 2014 Forest Hills Drive (he sits atop the house itself on the stunning album cover).
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Cole has taken a massive risk (by his own standards) in releasing a brutally honest, deep and self-analysing album that with bring about a multitude of diverse emotions, depending on who is listening to it at the time.
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It was calculated, but fraught with potential difficulties – and in “2014 Forest Hills Drive”, J. Yet, every now and then, he’ll surprise us all – this year he moved to the other side of the world. It’s one thing to be the ‘everyman’ of hip hop, but at some point, is it just a symptom of overwhelming shyness? A lack of daring? An acceptance of mediocrity? Risk aversion can manifest itself in different ways – one of my friends is, by his own admission, extremely averse to taking any kind of chance on a daily basis: he constantly plays percentages. Cole doesn’t actually have any signifiers, anything particular distinct about him – and he made his major debut feature over half a decade ago, now. Why does this matter? Because the most influential MC’s tend to be so distinct that if you just did the “Ugh!” Biggie ad-lib on a train, someone would probably mouth “Listening to ‘Hypnotize’ eh?” “Uh-huh!” is Jay-Z.