J. Cole is coming to the small screen. The North Carolina rapper will star in his very own HBO special next year. Cole's Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming special will air on the cable network in January.
According to Rap-Up, the special will debut on Saturday, Jan. 9, at 10 p.m. The 90-minute special, described as part concert film, part backstage pass, will tell the “No Role Modelz” lyricist’s life story through his own words and music, along with observations of those who know him best.
Cole will perform all 13 songs from his third album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, with special appearances from Jay Z and Drake, who also joined him on stage during his hometown show in Fayetteville, North Carolina back in August.
As previously reported, 2014 Forest Hills Drive went gold in its second week, moving 371,000 copies and earned Cole the No. 1 spot on the charts. In April, the album was certified platinum and became the first hip-hop album in 25 years to go platinum without any featured guests. This was all done with little promotion before the album and no singles released beforehand.
The album was met with mostly positive reviews, with the LA Times giving 2014 Forest Hills Drive 3 stars out of 4, noting its authenticity.
"That insistence on authenticity is a familiar pose in hip-hop, which often measures success not by how far an artist travels but by how little that travel changes him. For Cole, though, the street isn't just a source of (borrowed) credibility; it's where this storyteller goes to absorb details that for others might merely be glimpsed on a screen."
J. Cole Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming was directed by Scott Lazer, edited by Oliver Riley-Smith, with executive producers J. Cole, Ibrahim Hamad and Adam Roy.
In the past, HBO has worked with Roc Nation on specials including Jay Z and Beyoncé’s “On the Run Tour” in 2014 and “Jay Z’s Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film” in 2013.
