Here is my experience of the J Cole 4YEO World Tour
First and foremost, I cannot stress how amazing and genuine he is as a person and artist. If you are reading this and don’t know who J Cole is, please bookmark this post and google him right now!!! His last album is known to have gone double platinum with no features. His new album, 4 Your Eyez Only, released last December and once again quickly went platinum with out any features. Now let’s talk about the 2017 J Cole 4YEO World Tour.
When I first heard that he was going on tour I flipped out. Rumors at the time were that he was going to stop performing for a very long time. To my surprise, presale tickets for the J Cole 4YEO World Tour went on sale early 2017 and I could not hold on to my panties! 😅 shhh. I purchased my tickets for the show in July at The Honda Center in Anaheim, California. I must note, I was extremely disappointed to see that the stage layout changed 5 hours after I purchased my presale tickets. Based of the initial stage map, I did not want floor seats and bought first level seats thinking the stage would be off to the left hand side. Wrong!😑
The 4YEO World Tour officially began on June 1st in South Carolina.
As a concert goer I normally like to avoid videos and pictures of concerts because I want the experience to be as genuine and exciting as possible. But I was beyond excited for J Cole 4YEO World Tour and I decided to jump on Google and see if anything had been uploaded on YouTube. What I saw took me back to the small intimate concerts J Cole used to do back in 2010-2011 and I was excited to take out all the previous fancy production from the Forest Hills Drive Tour and focus on the music. I noticed a lot of mixing/remixing of his old hits with new songs (or so I thought). Wait for it….😏
The full J Cole 4YEO World Tour breakdown!
Now let’s fast forward to my J Cole 4YEO World Tour concert date on July 9th, 2017 at The Honda Center in Anaheim, CA. I was ready to sing till I lost my voice! Yes I am that girl. The theme seemed to be slightly different from what I had seen on YouTube. There was a small stage right smack in the middle of the Honda Center (eerily similar to a boxing ring) with security cameras as decoration around the stage and light bulbs hanging from the ceiling to the stage. Opening acts for the show were Bas who sang music from his 2016 Too High To Riot and 2014 last Winter and Ari Lennox sang a few songs from her upcoming EP.
The venue went dark, a spot light lit the left side floor area and the crowd began yelling. You immediately see J. Cole walking out wearing an orange jump suit slowly making his way to the stage located in the middle. Suddenly you hear For Whom The Bell Tolls beat begin. The crowd gets even louder, people clap and you faintly hear people yell “I love you Cole!”. The 2017 4YEO World Tour show began!
Right after, he continues on to Immortal getting the entire crowd pumped up before taking a break to speak to his audience. J Cole does this thing during all his concerts where he speaks to his fans as if hes having individual conversations with them/us. He talks about why he wrote a specific song, their meaning and even experiences that changed his views and perspectives on life.
4YEO World Tour-Anaheim, CA. July 2017
Now let’s talk about the best part of the show! Fans rap with J Cole
As a long time fan, I love to listen to the old school J Cole mixtapes like Fright Night Lights and The Warm Up. J Cole usually engages his audience in conversation and at this time he mentions he knows that he has fans that have been with him since day zero. He actually asks the fans for someone to sing the next song. He doesn’t say which song except the fan must be prepared to sing ANY song word for word and even says “we are going to put you on the screen!” I nearly died! At this very moment I was extremely mad and bitter about my seats and the whole map debacle. He was actually looking at the all the fans who had floor seats. I would have been making so much noise jumping up and down to have the opportunity to sing and rap with J Cole. After he hand-picked a fan, a very lucky young girl, he takes it way back to 2010 Friday Night Lights and begins rapping Lights Please.
When J Cole asked, “Who here can rap any one of my songs?”
Moving on to the mind blowing revelation of musical beats.
As J Cole continues to make a musical trip down memory lane, the melody to one of my favorite songs off his 2013 album Born Sinner begins. “Me and my bitch took a little trip…” The song Forbidden Fruit starts playing in the back ground and he begins to rap:
“Bitches come and go (You know that). Money come and go (You know that). Love come and go (Don’t shit last)… You know that… But what you didn’t know listen Cali.. Listen…”
The beat slowed down, started to reverse and then slowly transitioned into Neighbors from his current 4 Your Eyez Only Album. The beat from Forbidden Fruit was his song Neighbors backwards! MIND BLOWN!
“Do you get it Cali?! ….1, 2 Okay! …I guess the neighbors think I’m selling dope!”
After he was done with the song it finally hit me. What I had seen on YouTube, where I thought he was remixing and mixing his old and new music was actually him showing us how he used the same beat from Forbidden Fruit off his album Born Sinner in 2013, reversed it and created Neighbors in 2017 4 Your Eyez Only album. He then goes on and explains the situation that lead him to create the song.
For those that are not aware, the lyrics and meaning behind the song Neighbors is a real life situation that happened to J Cole in his North Carolina home out in the suburbs. J Cole purchased a house in his hometown for the sole purpose of creating a recording studio. As someone creating music, he has multiple artist, family members and friends coming and going from his home studio. One day, a dozen (or more) SWAT officers, dressed in full combat gear, break into his house. He explains how he thinks, allegedly, one of his neighbors called the police and reported “suspicious activity” on a new, young black tenant in the neighborhood. Needless to say, J Cole actually catches the entire raid on his home security footage. *ding ding* Wait a minute. Is that why the stage is decorated with security cameras? Yup!
J. Cole speaking wise words
J Cole really is one of a kind and I will tell you why.
As he finishes the rest of the tracks from 4 Your Eyez Only, he revisits some of his bigger hits off the 2014 Forest Hills Drive such as Wet Dreamz, A Tale of 2 Cities and one of my favorites, No Role Modelz. At this point he had been singing and rapping for 1 hour and 30 minutes. He begins his last speech of the night, he explains how many artist are afraid to sing songs that aren’t hits or have not been commercially successful (this is very true) and then he states:
“There are no more hits after this. Those are done. But I want to sing one more song and this song is 8, 9 minutes long. So if you want to leave right now. Avoid traffic. I won’t be offended”
He thanks everyone who came out to see him and a melody begins.. its the last song and self titled, 4 Your Eyez Only. At that moment, I had so much respect for him for acknowledging the fact that he knew this song might be hard for some of his fans to comprehend, but as an artist he felt compelled to sing it. I left the concert with a feeling of gratification. Overall, I really enjoyed the concert and I would gladly go again! My rating for the J Cole 4YEO World Tour is 9/10 simply because I was angry at the fact that his stage layout was not available the first 5 hours of presale. Yes I’m bitter! But this is just nitpicking. The concert really was amazing and I highly recommend it to all hip hop lovers and those wanting to explore other genres.
Lastly, I give you the J Cole 4YEO World Tour Setlist
If you are one of those fans who needs to know which songs will be played ahead of time, here is the full set list for the J Cole 4YEO World Tour as experienced from my Anaheim, CA concert date. Please note* songs may vary. But from what I notice, Cole likes to stick to his concert vision. If you are located outside of the United States of America and are looking for tickets, please check the Dreamville webpage for more info on cities, dates and tickets.
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Immortal
- Deja Vu
- Ville Mentality
- Change
- Lights Please
- Nobody’s Perfect
- Can’t Get Enough
- Forbidden Fruit
- Neighbors
- Foldin Clothes
- She’s Mine, Pt. 2
- Wet Dreamz
- A Tale of 2 Citiez
- G.O.M.D.
- Power Trip
- No Role Modelz
- 4 Your Eyez Only
Let me know how your experience at the J Cole 4YEO World Tour was. In fact, any other J Cole concert you’ve attended. Let’s bond over our favorite rapper 🙂
