I jumped on the bandwagon my senior year of high school (08/09) when The Warm Up dropped (yeah I'm unc).

Bro the ringtone era had ya boy THIRSTY for some conscious rap. I f*** with all hip hop but I felt like something in the game was missing and I was livin off The Cool and Hip Hop is Dead when I found Cole. It was like a mixtape sent down from heaven. By the time I finished that three song run from Welcome to Grown Simba I knew I had found exactly what I was looking for. FNL was pure bliss and even if The Sideline Story wasn't perfect, songs like the title track are perfect to me. I listened to that song shedding tears when I was searching for ways to reach my full potential during my college years. For me, Cole is still the most relatable of the big three.

I remember tryna tell people "give it 5 years and J. Cole will be huge." Imagine the gratification when just before hitting that 5 year mark he drops his first organic hit with Power Trip I knew people that didn't even listen to rap who were playing that song.

If this is truly his last album I feel it warrants some reminiscing. When was the first time Cole clicked for you?

2010 freshman year of college

Someone drop the meme

09 when I heard Grown Simba on realtalkny

Whenever Who Dat came out and was popping off

2011 right before the debut

When I was first joined twitter he followed me and I thought it was Joe Cole the soccer player. True story, on von

cant really remember when but i wanna say around middle school and the first song i heard from him was either work out or cant get enough

Sophomore year in HS when the Warm Up dropped

Remember immediately knowing he would be the next guy

Remember when Roc Nation was announced and Cole was the first rapper and how big of a deal that was

I didn’t fw Cole cause my older sister liked him too much

I was like who is this guy he’s not even all that, I used to hate on him just to annoy her love big sis

This was around like 2011 or 2012. I remember when he was beefing with Diggy and we’d discuss it

Crazy the only nigga he really beefed with was Diggy Simmons

Long enough that I had his songs on my zune

Back in 1985

I think nobody's perfect, but wasnt really a fan till like around 2014

2010 when my brother put me on but started listening to him heavy on my own in 2011

been one of my favorite rappers ever since

First time hearing Cole was on BP3. Crazy verse.
Downloaded The Warm Up but didn't give it a proper listen. Was rocking with FNL day 1, went back to The Warm Up and been locked in since

Beautiful Bliss had me like
I think after Lights Please and Who Dat I was hooked

I haven't yet

Yeah he smoked Beautiful Bliss.
Lights Please used to get spins on Hip Hop Nation so that may have been the first thing I heard from him

This was fire as well

Looking for Trouble verse on

is when i started taking him seriously, but knew about him cause of BET in middle school

i started fw him at 2014 fhd

his beautiful bliss verse was crazy, verses like that made it undeniable that the sky was the limit for him

Legit how I heard of him

09