On the evening of Wednesday, June, 5, J. Cole announced via his twitter account that he would be streaming his upcoming album Born Sinner at numerous locations around the world the following evening, by providing fans with latitudes and longitudes in order to send them on a musical treasure hunt to discover his follow up album to Cole World. Along with many other music capitals, Toronto was on the list (as the only Canadian location) with the coordinates of “43.65036 – 79.38884”, which once Google mapped, read the designation of New Era on Queen Street West.
Last Thursday, Cole fans huddled from the rain inside of Toronto’s New Era for the exclusive listening session, with their headphones in and LISTNR app downloaded on their smartphones in anticipation for the one-time stream at 8 p.m. While mingling, an instrumental began to play through the app, which looped until the album started, almost an hour late.
The album started and the venue went silent. Fans stood, sat, leaned and laid, while taking in the anticipated album, in a marketing first, and listened the whole way through to awaited tracks like “Forbidden Fruit”, featuring Kendrick Lamar, and “Let Nas Down”, where Cole speaks on the subject of letting down his idol.
After the album finished, those in attendance rose to their feet with a round of applause for the music that they, among fans in other cities across North America, were the first to hear.
Prominent Toronto blogger, Jordan Hayles, otherwise known as STiXX, could not sit still during the album. “I was mightily impressed,” he said, after the streaming ended. “It was 10 times better than his first one, because he took the time off, he went back to what the roots of hip-hop was. It’s about honesty; it’s about telling a story, it’s about telling your story.”
Award-winning DJ Lissa Monét was also pleased with the growth of J. Cole on the album.
“Sometimes there is a lot of pressure for second albums and I think J. Cole really dug deep and was vulnerable on this album and was still able to do what he wanted to do, which is produce and rap,” she said. “I’ve heard people say that J. Cole is not a strong producer, but he really showed himself up on this album.”
Just a few hours later, the entire album leaked on the internet for the rest of the world to hear, but on Thursday, June 6, many J. Cole fans experienced a listening session never attempted before and took part in hip-hop history.
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