2014 FOREST HILL DRIVE REVIEW

By Ronit Gandhi

The first album to go double platinum with no features in 25 years

2014 Forrest Hills Drive is J.cole’s 3rd studio album released on the 9th of December 2014 and it went number 1 on the US album charts. It is arguably some of his best work consisting of hit songs such as ‘Wet Dreamz’, ‘G.O.M.D’ and ‘No Role Modelz’. Throughout the album he takes aim at his childhood home due to the social problems associated with it such as gang violence, drug dealing and crime.

He raps deeply about how fame and being a celebrity has affected him in the song ‘No Role Modelz’ as well as talking about his father leaving him as a child whilst rapping about the fake and gold-diggers in Hollywood. ‘Wet dreamz’ tells a story of his first sexual encounter in high school with a comedic plot twist at the end.

The tracks ‘G.O.M.D’, ‘A Tale of 2 Citiez’ and ‘Fire Squad’ express and show his lyrical ability and his prowess with wordplay and the tracks ‘Apparently’, ‘St.Tropez’ and ‘Intro’ allow him to show off his vocals and singing voice with rap verses in-between.

Overall, this is one of my favourite albums of all time and it is impressive to see J.cole go double platinum without any help from notable artists, this is an excellent solo effort by him and I would strongly recommend any readers to listen to this album.