They are genuinely invested in the rapper’s journey, and want to see their idol live out his dreams, perhaps even inspire them to pursue their own.Ĭole is a main attraction, as evidenced by his Forest Hills Drive tour, his highest selling tour to date. They want to pay $1 for a ticket into his Dollar and Dream tour. They want to attend his private listening sessions in his childhood home in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Cole’s biggest selling point is his everyman persona, and delivering relatable material - whether it’s becoming the first artist signed to Roc Nation or expressing his emotional pain in songs such as his Michael Brown tribute “Be Free.” If there’s one thing you can take away from the arc of Cole’s career, it’s that his fans are dedicated to reliving these moments with him. 7, his first top 10 on the chart.Īdditionally, Cole is the type of rapper who shares his experiences in life so intimately that his fans admire his honesty. In the past, Cole has promoted singles like “Who Dat,” “Work Out,” “Power Trip” and “Crooked Smile” to land radio airplay, but his unconventional strategy - releasing material on his own terms, at his own pace - is clearly working for him, as every song from 4 Your Eyez Only has entered the Billboard Hot 100 at various points in the chart ending Dec. “I feel like it could go multiple directions.” Fans ended up with “Everybody Dies,” which didn’t appear on the album, as well as “False Prophets.” You get a chance to get one song, almost something that they can cling on to, that you can work around,” Ib says in the Scott Lazer-directed clip. “So basically, every song on the last album was even playing field. In one scene in the Eyez doc, Cole and his manager Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad talk release strategy, discussing how leading with a single ends up making it the automatic standout. He did it first two years ago with 2014 Forest Hills Drive, and again in 2016 with 4 Your Eyez Only, teasing just an iTunes pre-order link on Dec.
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The North Carolina rapper has adopted the new trend of a surprise album rollout, and no promotional single. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart, With Third-Largest Debut of 2016 It followed a documentary called Eyez, a personalized look at the recording process of the album, that also included two preview songs, “Everybody Dies” and “False Prophets,” calling out rappers from all generations and checking his peers to do better (Kanye West, Drake and Wale were among his perceived targets), though Cole himself - who doesn’t use social media - neither confirmed nor denied the rumors about his subject matter.
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Cole’s case for hip-hop’s throne was questioned when 4 Your Eyez Only officially hit streaming services and retail on Dec. Cole has become more successful, he’s turned into an Internet punching bag in the hip-hop community the ultimate divider in debates, where his catalog is compared (usually unfavorably) to legends like Nas and Jay Z, and his lyrics broken down ad nauseam to determine if he’s even a good rapper. From the announcement of 4 Your Eyez Only (his first album in two years) to his first-week sales numbers, there were just as many supporters who celebrated his return as there were detractors who couldn’t wait to fire off quips about his technical skills. Cole really is, and why he’s become so polarizing.
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Now more than ever, hip-hop fans have been debating just how big J. By comparison, of his total album sales in the U.S., first album, Cole World: The Sideline Story sold 855,000 his sophomore set Born Sinner totaled 796,000 and his third, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, moved 1.24 million, according to Nielsen Music through Dec.
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1 album, selling 492,000 units (363,000 in traditional album sales), a feat that placed Eyez behind only Drake’s Views and Beyoncé’s Lemonade for the third-best first-week sales of 2016. This week, the 31-year-old rapper earned his fourth No. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive follow-up, 4 Your Eyez Only, makes another case that he’s creating new rules for hip-hop, regardless of who lies within his fanbase.