Six Years Later J. Cole’s ‘Friday Night Lights’ Is Still Special

Released 17 long months after ‘The Warm Up’ but the timing couldn’t be more perfect

There’s a strange perception of long term relationships on the Internet. The photos, memes and tweets would have you believe it’s Nerf gun fights, hugs in the kitchen in your underwear, money left on the counter for Madden and all kinds of weird, nonsensical make believe, only on the Internet stuff.

Really, a releationship — a long, lasting relationship — mostly involves a ton of eating, deciding what to eat and driving to go eat. Eating. Driving. There’s stuff in between there but mostly you’re hungry, you’re debating what to do to fix that and you need to go get that food

That’s not meant to sound dour, actually it’s probably the most amazing part of a relationship. Those drives and dinners and lunches are where you truly get to know your better half, where you get your laughs, figure out their awkward quirks and begin and continue to truly understand why you chose them and refuse to let them go. Yeah, they’re mostly trying your food, bitching about that one girl at work, complaining about stuff and asking your opinion about made up scenarios but trust me, you will come to treasure these times.

The dinners are cool, but it’s really the drives that matter most. That’s where you literally set the soundtrack to your life, where you both share that moment and those sounds become ingrained in your memories. That’s why when people go on first dates they ask what kind of music the other person listens to. This matters, if the relationship lasts it will become a huge part of your life. The music you hear when you’re with that person and that’ll remind you of them forever.

That all might be “too deep for the intro” but that’s the point, because J. Cole’s Friday Night Lights celebrates a birthday today and it will always be tied to a special time in my life, and the same can be said for most of his fans.

The wife and I took an instant liking to Cole when I discovered his The Warm Up mixtape in 2009 on some rap forum I don’t remember. Being signed to Jay Z was enough to make me give it a chance, the soul samples of plenty of oldies tracks that she recognized and loved was enough to get her to buy in. That mixtape was soothing, calm, and warm, perfect for those drives we shared so often. We felt the messages on “Lights Please,” in many ways the last verse of “Hold It Down” was us, belting out the background vocals on “Ladies” was fun and it’s moments like this that make the “J. Cole is boring” nonsense so ludicrous. This tape was special to us, the soundtrack to so many of life’s little moments that I’ll never forget it or them, and I’m sure we’re not alone. They’ll forever be intrinsically linked. Whether I have Cole to blame for that, or coincidence doesn’t matter. It happened.

Which brings me back to Friday Night Lights, released 17 long months after The Warm Up but the timing couldn’t be more perfect. After an artist and their music becomes that intertwined in your life, something new from them can be like a godsend. It always seems to arrive at just the right time, the perfect pick me up for whatever it is you’re going through in your life at the moment.

This time, I was slogging my way through another semester of college, supporting my girl as best as I could as she served as the breadwinner for a family with two kids that aren’t hers. It’s as trying and complicated as it sounds, but she persevered, working retail at a discount chain store and hating it every day, but doing it for us. Each day I drove her to and from work we had Friday Night Lights to pick us up, remind us of better more carefree times and restore that warm feeling.

This time around, Cole was a tad darker, and for my life it was fitting. Things aren’t always perfect in a relationship, or in life in general. Money gets tight, you fight, you hate each other for a few seconds before shrugging it off and trudging forward. The holidays can amplify this, especially with kids in the fold, so as I worked this hustle and that hustle to make ends meet and string some new miracle together for the kids for Christmas Friday Night Lights was perfect. The ambition and passion of “2Face” hit me and motivated me in that dreadful final month of every semester when each day is a new test or paper due. Then there’s “Boy you know my L’s dirty, if they stop me I’m goin to jail surely” from “Before I’m Gone” which hit way too close to home.

And for me and her, and those drives and dinners, well, Friday Night Lights had something for those too. “In The Morning” was perfect, all the way down to the groggy, raspy, codeine-induced delivery from Drake that was all too relatable. And then “Love Me Not,” was us, yet again, for better or worse. J. Cole probably didn’t save our relationship, but his music will always be a part of it, the soundtrack to plenty of it and a special part of it.

Six years later, we’re still driving and eating, eating and driving. Every now and then we head back to the well, like this summer on drive to Vegas for vacation with the family. When the kids nodded off and it was time for something to keep us up and make the dreary, dark, boring drive more enjoyable, Cole was right there waiting to be unleased. To bring back the warm memories, to put smiles on our faces, and even the colder, more disappointing memories have been polished to a glisten now. Even if the times we’re perfect the realization is we got through them, they didn’t break us and we’re still here. Six years later.

Driving.

Eating.

Together.

Keep up with Bansky’s thoughts and words by following him on Twitter,@bansky.

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