Kids on Drugs.
Kill Our Demons
So I love Hip Hop. I love the culture, I love the background, I love the fashion, I love the emotion, but the aspect of hip hop I first fell in love with was the lyrics. I’m always elated to hear stories and listen to what other people have to say. I enjoy researching the rhetorical situation and context surrounding the album. I love analyzing the sentence structures, word choice, similes, and analogies to uncover what message the artist is trying to convey to their audience. This deep admiration for the linguistic side of hip hop made it even harder not to fall in love with the work of artists like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.
It is 1:30 am on April 21, 2018, and just over 24 hours prior to this moment, I had just finished J. Cole’s new project, KOD. One thing I enjoy about the work of an artist like Cole is the freedom given to the consumer to decode and analyze the album concepts for themselves. (I would recommend that you listen to KOD in order to understand the points I’m bout to make.. ) Jermaine Cole himself revealed that KOD has three meanings, Kids on Drugs, King Overdosed, and Kill Our Demons. Long story short, the album’s thesis is that we as humans have a void. We all feel empty and the desire for wholeness and we oftentimes try to fill said void with things like money, fame, success, power, drugs, and sex. (I also think it is hilarious that Cole released an album about drugs on 4/20.) Filling the voids with these items will make us feel better in the moment, but it is fleeting and we will soon go back to how we were feeling before. This album concept reminded me of something in the bible that is very similar.
Ecclesiastes is one of the most interesting books of the bible in my opinion. It is believed to be written by King Solomon and at first glance, it sounds kind of depressing. A couple of sentences into the book and it's already screaming that everything in life is meaningless. The word originally used in Hebrew for meaningless is, “Hevel”, which means smoke or vapor, and he uses this word about 40 times throughout the book. So basically the writer of this book is saying that everything in life is smoke? This makes no sense until you put some more thought into it. Imagine smoke, dust, or vapor. These items look tangible but when you try to grab them they fade away. You chase them just to gain nothing! These substances seem solid until you dive into them, and once you find yourself surrounded by the fog it becomes even harder to see what you're doing. Fog can act as a mirage showing something that is actually not there... The writer is using this analogy to depict how we can spend our entire lives trying to chase this “smoke” and it still disappears as we try to reach for it. This is very similar to the concept shown in J. Cole’s music video for ATM. The video shows Cole chasing money, the very thing that hurts him, imprisons him, and destroys him (that's a whole sermon right there…), only to crash at the end with nothing to show for it. (As you can see I really like analyzing music. I could go on a huge tangent but I’m going to try not to.)
The thesis of Ecclesiastes is basically that chasing the world is not worth it in the long run. It was written by one of the richest and smartest kings ever. King Solomon had access to literally everything and he is saying that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Solomon explains how working your butt off may seem good but it isn't worth the stress and even if you do become successful you will be too old to really enjoy it. If you get successful before you're old, you will be more stressed cause more people will want to steal from you. You may think pleasure is the way to happiness? No. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines and explains to us that the “Monday after the weekend” will always come. You will always have to come back to reality. Living by wisdom is even “Hevel”. It's an enigma. It is explained in Ecclesiastes that wisdom is great but brings with it depression and loneliness. Living life seeking the answers to all of these existential questions isn't worth it.
So I know this sounds terrible and that life is hopeless but it wouldn't be the bible if it didn't end with at least some hope.
One of the keys to enjoying life in the midst of all this emptiness and lack of substance is acceptance. Acceptance that, yes, everything is completely out of my control. I’m not strong enough, fast enough, rich enough, or smart enough to get through this thing called life on my own. But that’s ok because I know someone who is and He promises to get me through if I would just let him work through me. He creates purpose and fulfillment. I just need to let God and stop trying to do it on my own.
One of the corniest lines in the whole album comes at the end of the second song. After naming Money, Fame, Percs, and Molly among the things we self-medicate with to ease our pains and anxieties, we hear two voices pan from one earphone to the other earphone and tell us that the strongest drug of them all is love. Now, it confused me too. You could say it jerked me out of the vibe of the rest of the song. It felt like an almost out-of-place statement but I believe this was intentional on Coles’s part. As earlier discussed, we all have pain. A void that we desperately want to be filled. And our entire life’s journey can be boiled down to searching for something to fill that hole. We fill it with fleeting feelings of the acceptance or security we all so desperately crave but to no avail. It helps at the moment but then we come back searching for more after it wears off.
I want to argue that J. Cole was right in saying that Love is the strongest of them all because at the core that is what we are all in dire need of. That is what we’re all frantically searching for. At the core of ourselves, this Love is what we’re searching for. Everything else is only a glimpse of it. Now here’s the question. Do you want a selfie or a real person? You may be wondering, “Pace, of course, I want the real person... Why do you ask this question?” It seems silly but I say that to say that we’re only taking supplements when the real thing is right there, standing with open arms, waiting for us to let it grab us. That Love that will ease all pain, Love that will calm all anxiety, Love that brings that peace and joy we crave. That Love is available for everyone to receive at any time but so many times we get in the way of it working its natural work in our lives. I can’t decide for you, but for me, I’m tired of going to these temporary fixes. I want more love. I want the peace it brings. I can’t move on without it. I want it now. John Lennon and Paul Mccartney said it best. All we need is love. Are you ready to accept it today?
1 John 4:16 New Living Translation
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.
It may seem corny but I’m truly learning that in this world of uncertainty, Jesus brings me peace and comfort. I’ve tried other things. I still try other things, but at the end of the day, God is the only one who brings be fulfillment. God is the only one who makes me feel warm.
I’ve questioned if God existed. I’ve questioned if this was all in my head. But honestly, even if God wasn’t real I wouldnt trade whatever this is for anything.
