J. Cole Announces “2014 Forest Hills Drive” Album. Out on December 9.
After All the Rumours around J.Cole‘s upcoming Album. Finally, It appears that These Rumours are true and J. Cole’s Next Album Titled ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive‘ Slated to Release on December 9th. You Can Pre-Order It On iTunes.
Meanwhile, J Cole had an i-tune preorder link and a short documentary revealing the idea behind this album “I’ve gotten to this point in my career and realized that, yeah I got a lot more dreams and I wanna go further, but at the same time I don’t want it if it’s at the expense of my happiness,” J. Cole says in the documentary. “And I don’t want it if it’s at the expense of my sanity or if I have to become someone who’s so out of touch with what’s real: the people that love you and the people that you love. There’s a lot of people in Hollywood right now who have been there for a long time and they’ve forgotten about their small-town lives because they like this life better. But this sh*t ain’t real.”
J. Cole announced the release of his third studio album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, on December 9 with absolutely no hype. Just before the announcement, the Internet picked up on a pre-order Amazon link for the record.
Forest Hills Drive debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 in 2014, selling a total of 371,000 copies, with 353,000 copies sold as a full album and the remaining 17,000 copies sold based on individual song sales and streaming statistics. Nielsen SoundScan and Billboard introduced this tracking adjustment in December 2014. Forest Hills Drive was the biggest first-week sales of J. Cole’s career at the time, outselling his second album Born Sinner (2013) by 74,000 copies (297,000 copies).
Cole was one of just six rappers to have their first three full-length studio albums chart at number one, with Drake, Rick Ross, Nelly, DMX, and Snoop Dogg. In the United States, the album had sold 1,240,000 copies as of December 2016. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified 2014 Forest Hills Drive triple platinum on May 23, 2019, for combined sales, streaming, and track-sale equivalents of three million units in the United States.
In addition to exceeding initial predictions for album sales by over 100,000 copies, 2014 Forest Hills Drive also surpassed One Direction’s previous record for the number of Spotify album listens, with over 15.7 million streams in its first week as opposed to 11.5 million for One Direction. With 17.3 million streams for his mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Drake later shattered this record. The album sold 135,000 additional copies in its second week.
“What up? My New Album is finished. It’s called 2014 Forest Hills Drive and it’s very special to me. It’s available everywhere on 12/9. This time I’m releasing no singles, just the album. See you in 3 weeks. Thank you for the love and support,” J.Cole posted on Facebook.
A 7-minute video featuring Cole’s hometown and iconic locations including his high school, where he performed his first freestyle, and the Round-A-Bout skate park were released in conjunction with the album’s introduction. “I got to this point in my career and I realized: yeah, I got a lot more dreams and I want to go further but at the same time, I don’t want it if it’s at the expense of my happiness. I don’t want it’s at the expense of my sanity or if I have to become someone who’s so out of touch of what’s real,” he says.
The album took home awards for Top Rap Album at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards as well as Album of the Year at the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards. At the 2016 Grammy Awards, it received a nomination for Best Rap Album. At the 2016 Grammy Awards, the song “Apparently” was up for Best Rap Performance.
Cole’s childhood home in Fayetteville, North Carolina is the inspiration for the album’s title. Cole reportedly paid $121,000 for his property in June. J. Cole’s album announcement was accompanied by a 7-minute video in which he takes us back to his hometown and shows us places like his high school and the Round-A-Bout skating park, where he spit his first freestyle.
Cole wants to stay loyal to his roots, be authentic, and not succumb to the Hollywood ish, according to the album’s major message. Cole takes us to his “old stomping grounds” in Fayetteville in a brief film, recalling about one of the first times he freestyled at his high school and hanging out at the local skating rink. Cole says near the conclusion that after being in Hollywood for several years, he wants to reconnect with his small-town existence and achieve “true happiness.”
check out the Cover art below :
UPDATE: Tracklist
Album Video
