If you like hip hop, you have to check out J. Cole’s The Warm Up. It is categorized as a mixtape (which you can download free of charge and legally via zShare, illRoots.com, etcetera), but it sounds like an album.

For those of you who haven’t yet heard of J.Cole, he was the first artist to be signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label, which includes the likes of Mickey Factz and my homegrown hero Wale. What immediately sets him apart from most of his contemporaries is that he produces his own beats, and he’s been doing so since he was 15. He also graduated Magna Cum Laude from St. John’s University on an academic scholarship. Bright kid with some fire.

Right off the bat you can tell that his sound is fresh. Autotune is so appropriately, perfectly absent, which is (ehem) music to my ears. J. Cole can simply rip tracks. He uses internal rhyme, he can change up his scheme, switch up his flow, and freestyle good enough to make you think he wrote the verses first.

Some highlights I pulled out:

“These niggas talking like they on the next level and shit, but Cole flow so cold bet the Devil get sick” – on Heartache

“I’m tryin’ to shine like the bat sign, when there’s crime and the gats flyin’ up in Gotham (watch ‘em). Far from a thug, but I’ll drop em. Far from a scrub, but I’ll mop em (watch ‘em).” – on Til’ Infinity

“Hope that this will reach you when you understand/ that your value ain’t determined by another man./ ‘Cause right now you let the brothers get the upper hand,/ and you just tell ‘em go deep like Cunningham,/ and you just let them OD like Len Bias,/ and that pussy so good he let his friends try it.” – on Losing My Balance (Bonus)

Download The Warm Up today and enjoy one of the better productions by Hip Hop’s freshman class.

No related posts.