Born Sinner

Raphael June 06, 2013 0 Comment

Born Sinner, the heavily referential second LP for Roc Nation signee Jermaine Cole, borrows its title from the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy”. By the time you’ve reached the record’s end, you’ll have seen him try on a number of familiar hats. He re-purposes OutKast’s “Da Art of Storytellin Pt. 1” (“Land of the Snakes”) and fashions it into an anti-L.A. tirade. He duets with the remaining members of TLC (“Crooked Smile”) on a song that can be read either as a breezy style mash-up or as sacrilege. He co-opts a snippet of a Mike Epps comedy routine and he flips Cults’ “Bad Things” on a song about cheating, a track that also doubles down with Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman showing up to coo on the (long, guitar-heavy) outro. “Forbidden Fruit” finds Cole swimming in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation”, a track that also features a barely audible Kendrick Lamar. Towards the end, there’s a song-length love letter to Nas, talking about how he had let him down in previous songs and how that made me want to do much more!

Overall, he has done ridiculously well! Since I bought the album I have not been able to stop listening to it, J.Cole is able to rap about pain and the struggle, but also his sins and how he has worked hard to change from that!

Take a look at “Power Trip” which was the only song released before the album came out:

[youtube id="7AjD7nKiUQ4" width="620" height="360"]

Tags - featured, latest