The proper upbringing of children can do wonders in many ways. Though the benefits may not be seen immediately as years will pass by, eventually, those benefits will start to become apparent. However, things will not go always according to plan as they will be times that life will throw curveballs at you.
In such scenarios, an individual is forced to act on a difficult decision to tackle unexpected situations like in happened in the earlier childhood days of the well-known German-American rapper, songwriter, and professional basketball player named J Cole. If it weren’t for the brave decision taken by J Cole’s mother to take responsibility for her children single-handedly, J Cole wouldn’t have been as successful as we know it. So before we talk about J Cole’s rise in his career as a rapper and the enormous boost in J Cole net worth 2022, let us take a brief look over J Cole’s previous life before he becomes a celebrity.
Earlier life of the J Cole
J Cole originally known as Jermaine Lamarr Cole was born on 28th January 1985 at the United States of America military base in Frankfurt, Germany. His father was an African-American who served in US Army while his mother, Kay was a European-American who worked for the American postal service. When J Cole was just an infant, His father abandoned the whole family. With no support available from her ex-partner anymore, Kay Cole decided to leave for America to pursue a better life for her and her family. Within a few months, the whole Cole family shifted and resided in Fayetteville, North Caroline; at the time J Cole was just eight months old.
After graduating from high school with a 4.2 GPA, J Cole decided to re-settle in New York for better career prospects. The high grades allowed J Cole to attain a scholarship at St. John University where he did his majors in communication and business. He ended up with graduating a 3.80 GPA.
J Cole’s rise as a rapper
At the age of twelve, J Cole started showing interest in rapping. He would often practice rapping and would compose rhymes in his notebook. J Cole along with his cousin began to learn the fundamentals of rhyming and how to incorporate storytelling in lyrics. However, they were unable to produce music since they didn’t have any proper musical instruments.
So when J Cole turned fourteen, his mother gifted him a Roland TR-808 drum machine for Christmas so that he can now work on perfecting his craft. From there onwards, J Cole kept himself occupied by composing new songs on various social media websites under his artist name “Therapist”.
His inspiration for music comes from some famed rappers including Tupac, Eminem, Jay-Z, and Nas. In the year 2007, J Cole created CD’s worth of instruments and went on ahead to Jay-Z’s recording company, Roc the Mic Studio with the hopes of getting his idol to listen to his CD and sign him up for a recording contract.
However, after waiting for three hours, J Cole didn’t get a chance to play his CDs and was dismissed by Jay Z on spot. This abrupt dismissal didn’t discourage J Cole; on the contrary, it made J Cole more committed to developing his rap career.
Within the same year, He used the very same CD for background music for his debut mix tape “The Come Up” The mix tape was streamed 500,000 times while in DattPiff, the mix tape was viewed up to 1,800,000 times. During the period of developing his first mix tape, J Cole along with his friend Ibrahim Hamid founded their own recording company known as Dreamville Records. The formation of Dreamville records proved to be favorable as it allowed J Cole to create his releases without any limitations.
Two years later on 2009, J Cole released his second mix tape “The Warm Up”. The second mix tape proved to be a major boost in J Cole’s rapper career; not only it was viewed online 1,300,000 times but it provided a gateway for him to land major projects such as, his finally got recording contract at Roc a nation which led him to make his official appearance on Jay-Z album “The Blueprint 3”.
Other than getting featured in his idol’s album, J Cole was also featured on another American rapper Wale’s releases, one on a mix tape called “Back to the Future” and one on an album called “Attention Deficit”.
In 2010, J Cole started performing rap frequently with other rappers’ new releases and singles which further bolsters J Cole net worth. Moreover, to promote his music, he would perform on concert tours, sometimes by himself, or would do collaboration concerts with other fellow rap artists occasionally; like he did on another celebrated rapper Wiz Khalifa’s concert which was held by Syracuse University in New York.
J Cole as a successful and influential rapper
When the calendar year changed from 2010 to 2011, J Cole started grinding up his rap career for real. Despite releasing his new singles and working as supporting acts for other musicians’ concert tours, J Cole felt that he was becoming dependent on others for his success in rap music.
To change this, on 27th September 2011, J Cole released his first official debut studio album which he named “Cole World: The Sideline Story”. The album was an instant hit as it recorded a sale of 218,000 copies within the first week of its release and was ranked in the first position on US Billboard 200 chart.
Two years later on 18th June 2013, J Cole released his second album called ‘Born Sinner’. The majority of the songs were composed and produced by J Cole himself; however, it does feature some additional musicians who made a guest appearance including 50 Cent and Kendrick Lumar. To ensure the success of the album, J Cole released four singles which were:
1) Forbidden Fruit
2) She Knows
3) Crooked Smile
4) Miss America
5) Power Trip
Unlike his first album, The Born Sinner was ranked in the second position on US Billboard 200 within its first-week release. However this didn’t last long as after two weeks, the album was promoted to the first position after it was recorded selling 297,000 copies. Furthermore, it was rewarded the double platinum by the trade organization known as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Without taking any gap, J Cole released his third album ‘Forest Hills Drive” on 9th December 2014. Again the album was ranked in the first position on US Billboard 200 with 350,000 copies sold in the first week. Because the album broke the record of selling approximately 1.24 million copies in America; J Cole was awarded the ‘Album of the Year Award’ at the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards as well as the ‘Top Tap Album’ at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards.
From 2016-2018, J Cole released his two albums back to back. On 9th November 2016 J Cole’s fourth album ‘4 your Eyez only” was released on the Apple Store Inc app ITunes. Within the tracklist of the album the song ‘Déjà Vu became a high-charting song. As a result, again this album was certified gold by RIAA. J Cole even held a concert tour for his fourth album on a national and international scale by touring in North America, Australia, and Europe.
J Cole’s fifth Album ‘KOD’ was released on 20th April 2018. According to J Cole, the acronyms of KOD have three meanings which were; King Overdosed, Kids on Drugs, and Kill Our Demons. This album took a different stance as it addressed taboo issues faced by society such as depression, and drug addiction. On the day of its release, KOD broke the records in online streaming services with 36.7 million streams on Spotify and 64.5 million streams on Apple Music.
After three years, J Cole released his sixth album ‘The Off-Season’ on 14th May 2021. Among the track list of this album, four songs were charted in the top ten in US Billboard Hot 100 which were:
1) Pride is the Devil (at 7th number)
2) 95 South (at 8th number)
3) My Life (at 2nd number)
4) Amari (at 5th number)
The album overall received positive reviews from music critics and made it number one on US Billboard 200 consecutively for the sixth time.
J Cole as a professional basketball player
This might come as astounding but the majority of the well-known rappers had been in athletics in their youth. As you may have guessed correctly, J Cole isn’t just an average sportsperson rather he is a professional basketball player who is currently playing for a Canadian basketball team called Scarborough Shooting Stars.
J Cole has been playing basketball since high school and had played it for Eastern Team when they were competing in NBA All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game. However it wasn’t until 2021, then J Cole officially joined Rwanda’s basketball team, The Patriots Basketball club, and played three games for the team according to the contract.
After the contract with the Patriots came to end, J Cole joined the Scarborough Shooting Stars basketball team on 19th May 2022. At present, he has played four games in total.
J Cole Net Worth
The years of working as a renowned rapper have led to a tremendous increase in J Cole net worth. On 2014, J Cole net worth was $ 7 million. However this was just the beginning as with each passing year, the new releases by J Cole as well as certifications by respectable organizations and honorable rewards have turned J Cole net worth from a single digit to the double digits within one year.
Other than his rapper career, J Cole has become a millionaire from other sources as well which were:
1) Formation of the Dreamville Record Company
2) Brand endorsements with other biggest brands
3) J Cole‘s range of shoe wear collection known as ‘PUMA RS-Dreamer’ done in a partnership with athletic wear and casual footwear brand Puma
4) Dividends earned from the 3% of shareholdings in Jay-Z music streaming service ‘Tidal’. J Cole earned about $8.91 million in revenue from its which radically expanded J Cole net worth.
The earnings from collaboration with brands and running his recording business successfully have increased J Cole net worth 2022 which is now $60 million.
J Cole’s personal life
J Cole is married to his long-time sweetheart Melissa Heholt. J Cole and Melissa used to study together at St. John University. His wife works as executive director for Dreamville Records. At present, the couple is parents to two children.
