7 years ago today, J. Cole’s “2014 Forest Hills Drive” debuted at #1 on Billboard Chart.
Earlier this year, J. Cole celebrated the seventh anniversary of his multi-platinum album “2014 Forest Hills Drive”, and now it’s been seven years since the project topped the Billboard 200 charts. The album moved 353,000 equivalent units in the first week on US Billboard 200. The album still dominating the Billboard, as it has never left the charts and is still in the top 100.
The album was supported by four singles, “Apparently”, “Wet Dreamz”, “No Role Modelz” and “Love Yourz”. The project was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2016 Grammy Awards, while “Apparently” bagged a nomination for Best Rap Performance.
7 years ago today, @JColeNC‘s ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive’ debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. It has never left the chart and is still in the top 100.
— chart data (@chartdata) December 27, 2021
The album sold one million copies by September 2015 and started the internet memes of J. Cole going platinum without any features. In May 2019, the project was certified triple platinum by RIAA.
Cole’s third consecutive No. 1 album follows Cole’s 2011 release, Cole World: The Sideline Story, which debuted at the top of the charts with 218,000 copies sold. Born Sinner, his sophomore album, released last year at No. 2 behind Kanye West’s Yeezus, selling 297,000 copies. It would subsequently top the charts in its third week.
Prior to the release of Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive, Rick Ross held the record for most first-week sales by a hip-hop act in 2014 with Mastermind, which sold 179,000 copies. Cole’s sales easily outnumber that figure, and with the year nearly done, only Nicki Minaj’s third studio album, The Pinkprint, might come close to dethroning Cole.
J. Cole’s latest album “The Off-Season” debuted at #1 on Billboard 200 and is one of the top-selling projects of 2021. The album which went platinum earlier this month is also nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
The Dreamville founder’s first two studio albums, Cole World: The Sideline Story and Born Sinner, did not attain platinum status until after Forest Hills Drive did in 2014.
The anniversary of the record comes after Cole’s most recent effort, The Off-Season, was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2022 Grammys. Since the album includes performances from 21 Savage, Morray, 6LACK, Bas, Cam’ron, Diddy, and James Fauntleroy, the album was certified platinum earlier in December, breaking Cole’s run of achieving platinum with no features.
Cole also sat down for a long-awaited interview with Nardwuar, in which he hinted that he turned on Dr. Dre because of Kendrick Lamar’s dominance. When Nardwuar asked for his perspective on the topic, the “No Role Modelz” rapper was visibly surprised and sat in quiet for many seconds before responding.
Who told you that?” he finally replied, puzzled. “Who gave you that piece of information? … The answer is, yes. I did. I’m not gonna say I was the first to tell him […] I was like, ‘Yo, you gotta sign this kid from Compton, Kendrick.” “I don’t know what I would’ve signed him to, you know what I mean?” he explained. “We didn’t have our business intact, but that’s how much I rocked with him at that time. I met him and instantly, I was highly impressed. That would’ve been the first artist in my mind [to sign], but come to find out, he had bigger shit going on.”
.@JColeNC‘s ‘The Off-Season’ has now sold over 1 million total units in the US. All of his albums have achieved this milestone.
— chart data (@chartdata) December 22, 2021
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