2014 Forest Hills Drive.
| J. Cole
2014 Forest Hills Drive.
2014 Forest Hills Drive is the third studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was released on December 9, 2014, by ByStorm Entertainment, Columbia Records, Dreamville Records and Roc Nation. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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HipHop DX
It is ambitious and hokey and simplistic. It tries its hand at twists and comes up short (“Wet Dreamz”), and it sticks to Cole’s strategy instead of changing it drastically. It is less artistic than it means to be, but it is truer than anything he’s ever made. Its narrative, the tropes, and the strategies are completely overcome by the albums terrifying integrity. It is immensely relatable because it is not afraid to be corny and cliche´. It does not shirk the average experience; it embraces it and, somehow, makes you feel like we’re all in this together. And in this age of false irony, and the squashing of experience down into preconceived individual events where we all believe ourselves to be so different and so special, it’s fascinating to see an artist delve so fearlessly into the completely familiar.
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RapReviews
The engineering deserves a shout out, as it is exceptional, but a proper executive producer (a wise old head, perhaps) may well have trimmed the fat and presented us with an intro and 9-10 songs. He's been afforded a rare amount of artistic freedom on "2014 Forest Hills Drive" and there aren't even any singles, so it's great that he's more or less delivered. But whilst this definitely misses out on classic territory, that doesn't mean it isn't a bloody good album for the most part. Who knows what the future holds for J. Cole, but although it may not be a great album in everyone's eyes, it's clearly a great effort from the MC. And you can't say fairer than that.
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AllMusic
2014 Forest Hills Drive comes off as a great, experimental, and advancing mixtape, but it's insider to a fault, as slight as that fault might be.
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Pitchfork
With his third album, the North Carolina rapper J. Cole is certain he’s made his classic; he’ll tell you as much partway through the 15-minute credit roll “Note to Self”. In its quest to canonize, the record eschews both singles and guests: It’s a bold move, and where it floats, it soars, but it flops gloriously when it doesn’t.
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Rolling Stone
MC speaks truth to power, when he’s not being kinda pervy.
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Now Magazine
Cole injects his favoured classical strings, jazzy horns, poppy piano and smooth boom-bap with enough bass and stuttery glitch to keep it fresh, while deftly addressing serious themes like Ferguson, cultural appropriation and his lack of a father figure.
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The Line of Best Fit
forever earnest in his attempts to make a point, but forever falling slightly short of the mark when faced with the challenge of standing out from his contemporaries: not quite reaching the heights of those producing albums deemed ‘classic’, yet not in such dire straits as to be lumped in with the greying mass that makes up much mainstream hip hop.
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The Guardian
the entertaining braggart on getting lucky.
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The Boston Globe
On his disappointing third record, which he co-produced, Cole, like a lot of young, ambitious artists, seems to believe every idea in his head is worth documenting.
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PopMatters
With 2014 Forest Hills Drive, J. Cole relies on on stimulating emotions by telling instead of evoking emotion by showing.
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