J. Cole Talks Mixtape And Upcoming Debut

Last Friday, North Carolina rapper J. Cole released his excellent third mixtape, ‘Friday Night Lights’ (download here for free) for clamoring fans. It is purported that 4,000 logged on per second to download it. What does this mean for his anticipated upcoming debut album on Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label? Hopefully, big sales and mainstream recognition. He already started building buzz in the mainstream with the moderate success of Who Dat.

“I was searching for a title that kinda explained my situation,” J.Cole told AllHipHop.com. “I found it with that. I love the fact that the character of J.Cole is like this high school varsity athlete. So I wanted to stay in that realm in terms of the story. It feels like the big game is coming, you know its feel like that pressure that a player feels. It’s a few things, there’s pressure, excitement, anxiety, confidence, doubt all those things right before the big game. I felt that name kind of embodied all feelings.”

He was featured on Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Friday track, Looking For Trouble, but surprisingly wants to build up his career before working with the mega-star for his album.

“It’s up to Kanye, you know. I’m like a huge fan. What I want to do is just get the level of my name up, my weight up and my credentials up,” J.Cole revealed. “[I’ll] get enough notches under my belt and then I’ll reach out to Kanye. I kinda want to at least feel somewhere in the vicinity of the work he has put in before I go in with him.“

While most would jump at the opportunity to work with ‘Ye, this really shows how humble Cole is. On his debut album, he says,

“The mixtape was step 1. It’s about generating the level of interest for the album, that’s my main concern,” J.Cole continues. “And of course I am going back in December and I am going to try to do new songs. If I needed to drop an album next week, I can do it. It will be incredible. But since I dropped the mixtape, I feel my standards are now even higher than they were. I want to go back in to do better songs, that’s just how I work.”

I wish him all the best for his debut album as all three of his mixtapes, ‘The Come Up’, ‘The Warm Up’ and ‘Friday Night Lights’ have been better than most rappers’ albums. Be sure to visit DreamVillain.net to download ‘Friday Night Lights’ for free.