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Scoffing at nice rides and referring to retaliatory violence as ignorance and poison may seem like well-earned wisdom, but it’s really a failure of empathy. And it can be that way because Cole’s got four albums and multiple world tours under his belt. 2,” which radiate love and are some of Cole’s most endearing odes to romantic love, partnership, and parenthood. These values shine on songs like “Foldin Clothes” and “She’s Mine Pt. Cole’s world is a land of humility, domestic work, family, and good, educated decisions. Lines like these don’t sink the ship, but they do mark the margins of Cole’s everyman trappings.
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“Neighbors” is ostensibly about Cole’s inability to escape racism no matter where he lives, but between the restless nights and unsolicited cop visits, Cole squeezes in an odd humblebrag: “In the driveway there’s no rapper cars/Just some shit to get from back and forth.” Elsewhere, on “Change,” a song that’s allegedly about evolving, he conservatively raps, “Bloodshed done turned to the city to a battlefield/I call it poison, you call it real.” Likewise, “Change” also features this chin-grabber: “I believe if God is real he'd never judge a man/Because he knows us all and therefore he would understand/The ignorance that make a nigga take his brother life.” Cole’s good intentions aside, this a way of talking about crime among blacks that's more interested in blaming than understanding. Despite leaving off “False Prophets” and “Everybody Dies,” buzz-building tracks that embody the “king-of-rap” ethos that Cole disavowed on “Fire Squad,” a pestering condescension lurks.
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The album only falters when Cole’s empathy reveals its limits.