People might have been expecting this album to be as mainstream as everything else, the concept of this album wasn’t to complex. J. Cole definitely met all of my expectations.  The message within his album is so deep and relevant to issues surfacing in today’s youth.

Let’s start by addressing the meaning of the title. KOD has three meanings ‘Kids On Drugs,’ ‘King Overdose,’ and ‘Kill Our Demons’. The reason behind the meanings express emotional traumas kids deal with and try to find relieve in whether it’s coke, alcohol, marijuana or pills, hence the kids on drugs title.

The playlist in the album featured stories of addicts, ordinary people and the pain they feel. The more uplifting songs such as KOD and ATM still contain deep meanings and target rappers who mainly base there music around materialistic things.

Cole doesn’t fail to distribute his views on the impact drug culture has on today’s music. By embarking on mainstream artist, Cole’s intentions weren’t to ‘diss’ anyone. He simply wanted to inform these artist how powerful there words are to our easily influenced generation.

The tracks ‘Window Pain,’ ‘The Cut off’ and ‘Once an addict’ have a vulnerable tone: revealing Cole’s distinctive story about his mother and the way he dealt with his personal demons.

He took this album were no other artist was willing to. By exposing the realities of addiction to younger generations he’s not only opening the eyes of ignorance, he’s spreading awareness of the dangers he’s faced, in order to prevent it from happening to anyone else.

Cole has came a long way in his career and it’s refreshing to see artist implement motivational messages in there music.