J. Cole Announces Forthcoming '2014 Forest Hills Drive' LP w/ Heartfelt Mini-Doc
Platinum with a Few Features: J. Cole was Trying to Get Yasiin Bey to Appear on '2014 Forest Hills Drive'
J. Cole was this close to ruining the "platinum with no features" meme before it could even start.
Monday, December 9th, was the five year anniversary of one of the greatest rap albums of the 2010s: 2014 Forest Hills Drive, J. Cole's third album.
Dreamville fans spent the day celebrating the album, now considered a classic. Ibrahim Hamad, J. Cole's manager, was feeling sentimental about the album. Hamad went to Twitter to release some interesting tidbits about the album.
The first thing he revealed was that Yasiin Bey, aka Mos Def, and Future were both supposed to appear on the album. This move would have effectively killed the "platinum with no features" meme that J. Cole has become embarrassed by.
\u201cBumping FHD all day, one of the best album of the decade in any genre. And to think, we were tryna get Mos Def to do the 03 Adolescence hook and Future to do the end of No role modelz but it never worked out... would of ruined all the platinum with no features jokes \ud83d\ude02\ud83d\ude02\ud83d\ude02\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575914714
Hamad also told some sample clearance war stories, detailing how "03' Adolescence" and "January 28th" were almost cut due to sampling clearance issues.
\u201c03 adolescence almost ain\u2019t make it cause the sample was in dispute and Cole told the sample owner he\u2019ll hold 100% of the song for the sample owner to have til they figure the dispute out cause he had to have that song on the album. Thank god that song made it though, classic.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575917089
\u201cJanuary 28th was a sample from a Japanese artist we couldn\u2019t get in touch with at all for month and the sample clearance came from Japan at 2 am when our final deadline to turn the album in was 9 am that morning. I almost shed a real thug tear in that moment when we found out.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575917525
Check out some more tweets from Hamad. He talks about cutting the album down, potentially pushing the album, the genesis of "Wet Dreamz" and more.
\u201cFHD was a double album til like a month before we turned it in we cut like 10 songs out.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575917878
\u201cYes for sure that\u2019s the way but unfortunately we were pushing it so close being in December that we almost got pushed into January and the album is called 2014 Forest Hills Drive that shit could not have come out in 2015 \ud83d\ude02. Almost did though but we was not tryna have that.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575920168
\u201cDecember 2013 in the back of a tour bus on the What Dreams May come Europe tour. Atleast that\u2019s when he first bought it up to me and it seemed like it was a relatively new idea from his energy so I\u2019m a go with that answer.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575920355
\u201cNo wasn\u2019t for Sideline Story but it was recorded in 2007 just never fit into any project until FHD. It fit perfectly in the timeline of the album after January 28th before 03 adolescence, Obviously the whole album was a timeline so yea everything happens for a reason.\u201d— Ibrahim H. (@Ibrahim H.) 1575920938
A day after the anniversary J. Cole came to Twitter to celebrate his best album.
\u201cA day late but. Forest Hills Drive just turnt 5 years old. I feel big big gratitude for the year spent making it and for all the love shown to it. \u2764\ufe0f\u2764\ufe0f\u2764\ufe0f Shit crazy thank you God\u201d— J. Cole (@J. Cole) 1575986450
