J. Cole has finally achieved his first Billboard number one hit on the Billboard’s Top 100 list, something that’s eluded him his entire career. After having 72 songs charted, including 11 in the top ten prior to his recent number one, J. Cole earned his number one song alongside Drake as a featured artist on the song ‘First Person Shooter.’ It’s been a long road for J. Cole to get here.
Jermaine Lamarr Cole, known as J. Cole, was born on January 28, 1985, at a U.S. Army base in Frankfurt, Germany. His father, an African American soldier, left his mother, a white German postal worker, when Cole was a baby. Jermaine, his older brother Zach, and their mother then moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where they lived in a trailer park as she struggled to make ends meet. Following a series of hardships, Cole’s mother became addicted to crack, while Cole found his passion for music in Fayetteville when he joined the Terry Sanford Orchestra as a violinist.
He then began to teach himself rapping and production, rapping under the names “Blaza”, and “Therapist.” In 2007, he debuted his mixtape, “The Come Up,” which was largely self-produced, while also rapping over beats from other famous artists’ songs. In his second mixtape, The Warm Up (2009), a track called “Lights Please” caught the attention of producer and music exec Mark Pitts, who then played it for Jay-Z. Jay-Z was impressed with what he heard and signed Cole to his label, Roc Nation. From there, J. Cole would go on to release hit after hit, eventually forming his own music label in 2009, “Dreamville Records,” which would go on to sign artists like J.I.D., Earth Gang, Bas, and Ari Lenox.
“The label’s sense of community comes from Cole,” says Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad, Dreamville’s co-founder and J. Cole’s manager.
Fast forward to today: Jermaine has released six individual albums and three collaborative albums with artists from Dreamville Records. He’s received eleven Grammy nominations as well as winning a Grammy as a feature on 21 Savage’s song, “A Lot.” Now this milestone of achieving his first Billboard Hot 100 has even further cemented J. Cole as a notable musical artist, contributing so much to the world through his amazing songs.
When Jermaine was asked in an interview with Billboard if he ever feels like he’s out of step with his peers, he said, “I don’t look at it as they’re running left and I’m running right. I’m following my inspiration and where that’s going to lead me.” This attitude and confidence in his musical ability has gotten him to where he is today—on top of the charts.
