Roc Nation emcee and producer J. Cole like it or not is one of the more popular emcees here in 2016 and for the past few years. So it should be no surprise that he is one of the headliners for the upcoming 25th Anniversary of Lollapalooza at Grant Park in Chicago. Which will be taking place at the end of this month from July 28th-July 31st. With Cole headlining on the Samsung stage the opening day of July 28th.
That it took four years for Cole to be a headliner is the head scratcher though. As the emcee is no stranger to Lollapalooza and performed at the festival twice before. His most recent performance being on the Bud Light stage in 2012 and first performance on Perry’s stage in 2010. When he first performed in 2010 his performance was said not to be as great and polished as his 2012 performance, which had many wondering if his next Lolla appearance would be as a headliner after such the great response to his nearly hourlong set. Four years later here he is set to do so in just under a couple of weeks though.
With collaborations ranging with everybody from Jay Z to Kendrick Lamar, the legendary TLC, Nas and Missy Elliott, as well as Mos Def, Jay Electronica, Melanie Fiona, Miguel, Elle Varner and Jeremih, the first emcee signed to Jay’s Roc Nation imprint has achieved a lot in such a short time. Some of the more notable names that he has also collaborated with in his short career includes the iconic Janet Jackson and Beyoncé. Showing how wide-ranging and in-demand he has been from other artists in his very short career thus far.
Cole has had a lot of chart success not only with his collaborators such as Janet, Bey, Miguel, Elle Varner, Jeremih,and Melanie Fiona, with whom he has had several national entries as a guest feature on the charts, but on his own too. His most recent album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, recently being certified double platinum and it’s number one debut on the Billboard 200 charts when it was first released in December of 2014 marking the Dreamville reps third such achievement on the charts. By reaching platinum with said album earlier this year, the Fayetteville, North Carolina-bred emcee also ironically enough recently become the first rapper in 25 years to have a Platinum-selling album without any features or guest appearances.
The Fayetteville native has also had nearly half of his 13 singles certified Platinum or Gold. But the true measure of an emcees success is the thoughts from his peers, which whom he has been praised several times over from the likes of Jay, Nas, Kendrick, Wale and Pusha T among others. With Cole and Kendrick even talking of having a collaborative album to be released in the next year or two. The Roc Nation emcee has also even started his own label Dreamville Records in the process, which houses emcees Bas, Omen and Cozz. All of who are also scheduled to perform at Lolla this year on that same Thursday on the Lakeshore stage.
Every year there is many artists at Lollapalooza that bring out special surprise guests whether somebody big or small with fans wondering each year if they can guess who will be brought out. In year’s past Eminem has brought out Royce Da 5’9” and Rihanna as some examples. This year with Cole, he is almost assuredly going to bring out his Dreamville artists at some point to perform with him and one would guess if he brings out any other special surprise guest(s) during his set it would be Chicago’s very own Jeremih with whom he has the Platinum-selling and chart topping Planes collaboration that he was guest featured on. With Lolla set in just about another week and a half, we will have to wait and see though.