J. Cole Went Platinum With No Features

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About

"J. Cole Went Platinum With No Features" is a catchphrase used by the fans of American hip hop artist J. Cole to celebrate the commercial success of his third studio album 2014 Forest Hills Drive, which was almost entirely composed and produced by the artist himself. Upon being certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2016, many fans of Cole praised the certification as an impressive feat, especially considering the noticeable lack of collaboration with guest artists or co-producers. The phrase is also commonly used in situations not related with J. Cole, or rap whatsoever, thus adding to the joke.

Origin

On December 9th, 2014, J. Cole released his third studio album 2014 Forest Hills Drive^[1], which was primarily composed and produced by the rapper himself with some support from several co-producers. Despite the lack of marketing or promotion for the album prior to its release, his album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and sold 371,000 copies within the first week; it also set a record for the most streamed album on Spotify with over 15.7 million streams in the first week, surpassing the previous record of 11.5 million streams set by One Direction.

In addition to its commercial success, 2014 Forest Hills Drive was met with critical acclaims and various accolades, most notably the BET Hip Hop Award for Album of the Year and Billboard Music Award for Top Rap Album in 2015, as well as a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album in 2016. On January 8th, 2016, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Spread

Some of the earliest tweets from J. Cole fans gloating that the rapper's album went "platinum" began to surface as early as in mid-February 2015, with the earliest known tweet posted by Twitter user @Un_fukwitable.

Throughout 2015, thousands of tweets praising the commercial success of J Cole's album in the absence of any major marketing campaigns, promotions or guest features continued to surface on Twitter.^[2]

However, what initially began as a catchphrase used by J. Cole's fans to genuinely promote their favorite rapper quickly evolved into a satirical meme in May 2016, when people who are looped into Black Twitter and online hip hop communities began appropriating it as a silly way to ridicule the excessive level of hype instilled by overzealous fans. On May 23rd, Twitter user @big_business_ tweeted several jokes using the catchphrase (shown below), garnering thousands of likes and retweets in less than a month.

On June 13th, 2016, the Twitter meme was highlighted by a number of hip hop music and entertainment news sites, including Complex^[3] and BET^[4], as well as on Reddit's /r/HipHopCirclejerk^[5] community.