I don’t like rappers but J.Cole is amazing. Yes his songs are laced with more ‘N*****’ and ‘B****’ than I can usually bear but this is chased by admirable intelligence that most rappers seem to lack.

I do have to reluctantly admit that occassionally calling himself the ‘greatest’ is a slight sign of Classic Rapper Narcism but frankly I think I agree. He is great.

I have listened to all of his albums and they confirmed this.

I saw him at the 02 in London recently and this not only confirmed that he was great but found me clambering for a new word to describe his awesomeness.

After the wishy washy, floaty vibes of supporting act Jhene Aiko, J.Cole came bursting on the stage.

Wearing a plain black t-shirt and rolled up tracksuit bottoms, he seemed like he was dressed to just hang at his house with a couple thousand friends that he had over  and that’s how the concert felt.

He coyly  told us that some people say that he was announced as having the Best Rap Album in the Billboard Music Awards so would be performing his entire album.

From the start I was dancing like I was at a rave where the DJ just happened to be my best friend and knew every single one of my favourite songs.

When it was time for the catchy banger no ‘Role Modelz’ about shallow reality show girls J confided in all 20,000 of us, his inspiration behind the song.He explained that he became obssesed with a hot reality girl on instagram.

‘My homepage became instagram.com forward slash that girl’s page’

 On one of his excursions to her page she quoted Buddha which thrilled him as he had evidence that she not only looked nice but could read too.However, he found out that depite the precious evidence that she was literate, that there was not much to her which inspired his catchy, on the ball song.

J.Cole performed all of the songs on his album with added raw in your face emotion which audio files can never do justice to. He managed to whisk us away to a region of his  stunning mind with his immersive narrative style whilst keeping us dancing the entire time.

He did the standard musician goes off stage to shouts of encore to then come back on stage which was annoying at first. But  he came back  poking fun at the practise saying ‘Guys you know I was just f***ing with you’.

After more profuse dancing to some of his ingrained classics he played ‘Power Trip’.  Expertly, on the line ‘F*** it i’m over’, J cole stopped rapping and started doing the goodbyes.

I hated it. It felt like I had just been chilling with a good friend who suddenly got their things together and quickly left. I wasn’t impressed with  the way the concert ended but I don’t think I ever would have ever been happy that it ended.

When J.Cole performs in London again, I will definitely be catching up with him.

©  Cultural Magpie