Ben: Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming

Alright Fellas,

Once again, my bad for not getting this in time. I had the Weissbourds visiting this weekend and they finally left last night. My Mac Wednesday is the new J. Cole show on HBO documentary series: Homecoming. Since it’s black history month and all I figured it was the most appropriate choice. Jermaine Cole was born in Fayetteville, NC and attended St. John’s in Queens where he graduated summa cum laude in 2007.  In a later episode we get to see him perform a show back at his alma mater and it felt like I was watching a superstar come back to Bates.

His journey to making it is a relatable one. Good student, normal guy, a bunch of goofball friends from St. John’s that makes up most of his crew now.  But once he made it, his professional journey was made up of bright flashes of super talent and inconsistent tracks and messages. He was always viewed as a “conscious rapper” ever since his first mixtape and then made an even better one actually titled Friday Night Lights.  The myth goes he used to drop off his mixtapes at Def Jam every day until Jay-Z himself finally listened to it and he summoned him to Hip-Hop kingdom, where he has grown into a worthy prince. However, after watching this documentary series it’s obvious to me that he’s no longer reporting to a king, but instead making music that comes from within him.  After he initially blew up, he began to let the pressures of producing singles affect his music. Some people relate this Homecoming album back to his early songs and his music before it lost its innocence to money. But this album is different because he has money and he’s been there and done that and now he’s ten times better.  The album is a memoir and the tracks are chronological, yet always tie back to his hometown of Fayetteville, NC.

The reason why this first episode is so cool is because he has a listening party in the house he grew up in for students at his high school. Each kid gets headphones and gets to walk around his old stomping grounds like an art exhibit. It looked like an out of body experience for the kids and even J. Cole when he goes back to visit his house after the exhibit. I think you’ll all really enjoy the creativity, humor, and honesty that he exudes in his music and his everyday life with everyone he interacts with.

You can find the show on HBO on demand or HBO go. Lemme know if you need my step moms subscription.