Track four, "Ville Mentality," unfolds more of the album's major themes over a shuffling soul beat. "It's that sort of thinkin' that been keepin' niggas chained/ At the bottom and hanged/ The strangest fruit that you ever seen, ripe with pain." "Ville Mentality"
"They tellin' niggas sell dope, rap or go to NBA, in that order," Cole spits. But the joy of the rags-to-riches storyline is tainted by the rarity of his rise. He then winds out stories about hustling on the corner, building towards his present station. "Screamin,' dollar and a dream with my closet lookin' broke."
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"I was barely 17 with a pocket full of hope," he raps. "Immortal"Ĭole opens "Immortal," a hard-hitting stream of meditation on his position in rap and the black man's position in America, with a reminder of who he is and where he's been. "Tired of feeling low even when I'm high/ Ain't no way to live, do I wanna die?" Cole asks himself over soft African chimes, before answering the brutally honest question: "I don't know." It immediately sets a very different tone from the optimistic intro of 2014 Forest Hills Drive. The opener of 4 Your Eyez Only, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" channels a similar plea for freedom, this time from his own doubts and depression. He dropped "Be Free" with its plaintive sung chorus: "All we wanna do is take the chains off." In the midst of the 2014 Ferguson protests, Cole revealed another dimension of his vocal abilities: his blues voice. Here are a few breakdowns of the album's standout tracks. He takes aim at systematic and cultural racism, his coming to terms with the responsibilities of fatherhood, survivor's guilt and grief, among many of life's darker corners. The album offers a raw glimpse at the contents of Cole's mind, and for the most part he's thinking about much deeper issues than the careers of rap's heavy hitters.
After even a single listen to 4 Your Eyez Only, that omission begins to make sense.
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