J. Cole ‘KOD’ Concert Review
The concert began at 7:20, with Kill Edward beginning the concert with just one song and a short introduction to the rest of the performers for the night. Kill Edward is actually J Cole’s alter ego, and he played it up by keeping his face in the dark while on stage performing under that name. After a few minutes, the first full-length performance, EARTHGANG, came on stage while the venue was still filling up the seats. A common theme between all the opening performers was maintaining a high energy level as to hype up the crowd for J Cole. EARTHGANG started with a bang, playing a few hits like “Red light” and “Meditate” all while keeping a solid stage presence by dancing across the stage and interacting with fans. There were two large screens on either side of the stage, which played an animation of the two rappers throughout the majority of their songs. After their last song, the two asked the crowd to yell “as loud as they can muster with all the energy of their spirit animal.” With that, the two exited the stage to resounding cheer and applause. While only a 25 minute set, EARTHGANG brought plenty to the table and set the stage for the rest of the performances.
The next to perform was Jaden Smith, fresh off of his single “Ghost,” to which he performed first. EARTHGANG started the show by getting the crowd hyped up, and once Jaden came on, nearly all the seats were filled. Jaden utilized a large screen in the center of the stage for his graphics, which consisted of snippets of his music videos and a few aesthetics such as an ocean and flames. Jaden performed “Ghost,” “Icon,” and “Batman” in the beginning of the set, not leaving any time for the crowd to settle. Jaden’s stage presence was just as electric as EARTHGANG, dancing around the stage and having an all-around great time. There was an underlying vocal track for the majority of his set, giving him the opportunity to highlight some lyrics from his songs and leaving the rest up to the audience. This put the spotlight on his dancing and his energy performing, which carried his set. Before leaving the stage, Jaden performed “Icon” a second time while running into the crowd and dancing with fans, to which everyone close enough to him was ecstatic. Much like EARTHGANG, Jaden’s set was also 25 minutes long, but served to hype up the crowd even more. By this point in the show, the majority of the venue was full, and ready for arguably the biggest opening performer of the night.
The last opening performer was Young Thug, who capitalized on the rising energy of the crowd to deliver one final hit of adrenaline before the main performance. Young Thug entered the stage with a personalized Penn State jersey with his name on the back, which made the crowd go wild. It was a small detail, but went a long way to make the Bryce Jordan Crowd feel special. Young Thug’s set was slightly longer than the two that came before him at around 35 minutes, but still kept the energy rising at a steady rate. Young Thug had the same approach as Jaden, using an underlying audio track of his songs to which he rapped along with and gave ample space for the crowd to sing along with him. While Jaden’s set was centered around his energy while dancing and running around the stage, Young Thug took a more subtle approach, mainly standing by the microphone on center stage, and moving around slightly throughout. With and artist as big as Young Thug, especially on a college campus like Penn State, Young Thug knew exactly which songs to play, in exactly what order. Some of the highlights include “Best Friend,” “Pick up the phone,” and “Wyclef Jean.” Thugger made a point to run through all of his hit, with little to no downtime in between each song, aside from a few interactions with the crowd here and there. After performing a few hits and hyping up the crowd to a boiling point, Young Thug left the stage to thunderous applause, getting the crowd ready for the last performance of the night and the reason everyone came out, J Cole. -Zach Hall
After Young Thug left the stage a black banner displaying “Kids On Drugs King Overdose Kill Our Demons” hung in front of the stage. J. Cole has said that each statement is a meaning behind the title of his latest album, KOD. When the banner falls at 9:20 J. Cole’s set is unveiled, a pair of “KOD” balloons are on both sides of the stage as well as two pairs of video towers. In between the props J. Cole’s band and DJ are positioned further back. Shortly after the banner falls J. Cole arises from the floor wearing a white tee shirt and rolled up sweatpants. Cole begins his set by passionately performing the outro of KOD, “Window Pain.” Cole then asks the audience to join him in putting their hands up and he begins performing “A Tale of 2 Citiez” and then “Fire Squad,” two of the more well known tracks from his 2014 album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive.
After he finishes fire squad, Cole formally introduces himself to the Bryce Jordan Center. He explains the three meanings of the album before performing “Photograph” which was accompanied by a video of instagram timeline featuring pixelated images of women. Cole begins to talk again and explains that the theme of KOD can be boiled down to pain and how we deal with it. After the message Cole performs “The Cut Off” which features his alter ego kiLL edward. During the performance the spotlight and other lights are turned off whenever Cole raps from the perspective of kiLL edwards. This occurs throughout the show whenever Cole raps from his alter ego’s perspective. Following this Cole again goes back into his catalog to perform “Deja Vu” off of his 2016 project 4 Your Eyez Only after asking the crowd to “put a finger in the sky.” This song brings a different type of energy out of Cole who begins running across the stage and jumping on equipment while rapping.
Cole then performs “ATM” and “Motiv8,” two of the more commercially successful songs off of KOD which is evident as the whole crowd tries to rap each word with Cole. Cole then pauses to talk again this time his voice is accompanied by a guitar playing “Kevin’s Heart.” During this conversation with his fans Cole calls temptation a “triflin b****” before actually performing “Kevin’s Heart” the song that was inspired by comedian Kevin Hart’s infidelity. He then continues performing songs off of KOD by performing “Brackets,” during the performance Cole passionately raps his verse about taxes which he then talks about after the song and jokes he didn’t go to Penn State when describing the way taxes can be taken out of a check. Cole then asks for his day one fans to assist him with rapping “Nobody’s Perfect,” the arena grants his wish as the video board shows the audience for the first time with many people rapping all the words to the song.
Cole stops to talk again, this time he encourages people to keep going, with whatever it is that they are pursuing. And remembers a time “twitter A&Rs” were on the “twitters” saying he wouldn't last because he couldn't make a hit record. Which prompts Cole to begin two of his earliest hit records, “Work Out” and “Can’t Get Enough”. Cole then performs more songs off of 4 Your Eyez Only including a crowd assisted rendition of “Ville Mentality” and “Neighbors” which was accompanied by viral videos of people calling the police.
After the performance Cole sits down and tells the crowd that everyone experiences pain. Then, as the crowd lights up the arena with their phones, he performs what he says is his favorite song he has ever written, “Love Yours.” Which is followed by a performance of another 2014 Forest Hills Drive favorite, “Apparently” which prompts Cole to get up from the stool to dance with the mic stand. Cole acknowledges that album put him on another level and with a high level of audience participation he precedes to perform “Wet Dreams.” After shouting out his DJ, Cole performs “GOMD” which transitioned into “Power Trip” after Cole rapped “This is the part that the thugs skip”. For this segment of the show crowd participation was at its peak as Cole performed hit after hit which proved those early twitter A&Rs wrong.
Cole then delivers an impressive performance of “KOD,” the highlight of the performance came when Cole effortlessly rapped his rapid-fire second verse. During the second verse Cole confidently looked at an imaginary watch to show how long he’d been rapping without a pause, also goat emojis began to fill the screen while Cole was showcasing his double time flow. Cole then walks off stage only to return to perform a mostly acapella version of “1985 (Intro to ‘The Fall Off’).” much to the delight of the audience Cole performed his biggest hit to date, “No Role Modelz” to close the show, capping off an impressive concert that contained a varied selection of hits from Cole’s catalog. - Jerome Taylor
Zach Hall is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email zth5043@psu.edu.
Jerome Taylor is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jerometaylor91697@gmail.com.
